


Molecules

by imperfectkreis



Series: Tate [1]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 3
Genre: First Time, Hand Jobs, M/M, Masturbation, Oral Sex, Virginity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-13
Updated: 2015-12-27
Packaged: 2018-04-26 05:51:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 20
Words: 49,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4992727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imperfectkreis/pseuds/imperfectkreis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lone-Wanderer-to-be Tate Zhang spends like three years not jumping Butch DeLoria. Okay, well, he jumps him but mostly to punch him in the face and then back off because while he's fully aware that he's into cock he really doesn't want to be into Butch's cock. Fuck.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. You better shape up because everything that happens in the vault definitely stays in the vault, including you, kid.

There ain't nobody in the vault that makes him angrier than Butch DeLoria. 

Butch surrounds himself with all the other boys about their age, a social buffer against the endless repetition of vault life. Wally and Freddie and Paul all crowd around him, worshiping at his damn feet because he had the great idea to start a gang. And woooowww isn't Butch just so tough, and so great. What an ideas man, even though they're only fifteen. The other boys don't wanna do anything all day anymore but talk Butch up. It's going to his damn head, inflating his hair.

And standing on the outside is Tate.

He doesn't care. They don't like him because he's the doctor’s kid. Tate gets special treatment because of it. Like that time he was found wandering the hallways after curfew. When security tried to escort him back to his father, he took a swing at the officer’s midsection, cracking his hand on the armor padding. And the other boys all know he wasn't punished for it. Just a stern warning and back to his dad. So Wally and Freddie and Paul and Butch are gonna punish him instead. They’ll get him black and blue one of these days.

Instead of hanging out with the other boys, making trouble and wasting time, Tate lays on the floor of Amata's bedroom, asking her to read to him, because he likes her voice. The Overseer fully endorses Tate spending as much time as possible in his daughter's bedroom, preferably with the door closed. 

They're fifteen, but they're not idiots. Both Tate and Amata know why. In a few years they'll be married anyway; the Overseer is probably hoping for sooner. Tate has been selected for her, special. But he doesn't know why him because Amata is good, so good, and he's not. She's clever and kind, even when the other boys attack her with words, coming up on the edge of fists. Even when the girls taunt her, screech in her ears. Tate promises he'll beat any one of them to a pulp for her. She just has to say the word.

Amata points out they're all bigger than him, at least the boys. Tate scoffs, says that doesn't matter. He'll hit his growth spurt soon enough. And even if he is shorter, that doesn't mean he's not strong.

She plays with his hair, his head in her lap while she reads. They've only got so many books, but it doesn't bother Tate if it doesn't bother Amata.

The Overseer doesn't know, when he later finds Tate in Amata's bed, sound asleep and curled around her smaller body, that nothing could be more innocent. Tate likes the way her hair smells like lemons, whatever those are.

When the time comes and their fathers have agreed to it, he'll be happy to marry Amata, because she's clever and she's kind. She's a much better person than Tate deserves. And she listens when he screams about how there's no one in the vault that makes him angrier than Butch DeLoria because he can't stop thinking about what his busted lips would feel like against Tate's.

\--

"Tate! Wait up," Amata skips faster to catch up, her shoes scraping against the floor. Threading her arm through Tate's, they walk together. She's got a stack of books in her other arm and Tate offers his hand out to take them for her. Without protest she hands them over.

They're sixteen and the Overseer is pleased with them. He claps Tate on the back every time he catches Tate alone. Either he misses how Tate shivers in revulsion or he doesn't care. Every time they see each other, he asks Tate about Amata, like he doesn't talk to her himself, though they all still live with their parents.

"I take it you wanna come downstairs with me?" Tate means to the reactor level. He's had that shooting range setup down there since he was ten. His father got Jonas to do it like some sort of favor. Tate doesn't know what he's expected to shoot. Stomping on radroaches does just as well as heavily rationed bullets.

"I don't know what you could possibly mean!" Amata smiles. 

Tate may not like shooting, but Amata loves it. She's gotten really good too, lining up her shots and taking them in quiet succession. Tate likes watching her shoot while he does other stuff. Stuff that will make him stronger, like, pull ups and sit ups and shit. Just like, stuff that makes his arms burn by the time he’s finished. He’s gotta figure out something.

They check both ways down the hall before going down the stairs. Tate doesn't know what will happen if they get caught. She's the Overseer's kid and he's the doctor's, so it's not like they could possibly do anything wrong. Not like those 'Tunnel Snake' boys. Troublemakers.

Dropping the books on the table, they go about getting ready. Amata unzips the front of her vault suit while Tate pulls the BB gun from the locker along with a bunch of ammo. Amata ties the arms of her jumpsuit around her waist. The arms on her suit have been getting tight, across her chest too, and she says it makes it harder to aim when she feels like she's trapped.

Amata loads the gun herself while Tate watches. 

"You're not normally this quiet." She lines up her first shot. It's slightly off, landing in the innermost white ring instead of the red bullseye.

Tate shrugs. "G.O.A.T. tomorrow," he says like that explains everything.

Amata sighs, she hits the white again. "Yeah, but don't worry about it. I hear Brotch will give you any assignment you want if you ask nicely." She fires another round, this time it hits dead center.

"Oh, is that so? Is that what you hear?"

She pauses, moving her face away from the sights. "No, just..."

"You already know your assignment."

"Yeah," she sounds sad. 

Tate feels like a dick for having brought it up at all. While he's stressing about what his dad is gonna make of his result, Amata already knows what her father has hand-picked for her. And it's got nothing to do with what she wants, or even what she's good at.

While he watches her shoot, Tate uses one of the overhanging pipes up pull himself up, over and over until his arms are trembling and he can’t do it anymore. They don't talk much once they’re both focused, but Tate thinks plenty. What would Amata do if her results weren't tampered? She'd be real good at security. Or maybe take over the clinic when his dad stops working. But Tate would kind of dread that. His dad spending all day with his wife. He doesn't want either of their dads more involved than they need to be.

The ping, ping, ping of Amata's shots start getting further and further apart. She's picking her shots more carefully, aiming at places other than the center of the target. The game is getting too easy for her.

"You should try?" she offers. "Might make you feel better to hit something?"

Yeah, it would, but Tate wants to actually hit something. Shooting isn't the same. He can't say no to Amata though, so he takes the gun from her hands.

She laughs at him good naturedly as he misses the target almost completely, just grazing the corner of the paper. The second shot is a bit better, but it's still on one of the outer rings. One of the shots out of five isn't so terrible, but Tate knows it's a fluke. Amata congratulates him anyway, mocking that she knew he could do it.

Before they start packing up, Tate grabs her by her waist. It's soft and sort of beautiful in its own way. The extra weight has made her cheeks fuller. Even though he doesn't like women, he likes Amata and can appreciate how pretty she is. How she lights up any room she deigns to walk into. The vault doesn’t deserve her. 

She laughs when he grabs her. Tate swings her around before putting her back on flat feet. He keeps his hands on her hips, while she throws her arms around his shoulders. Her head rests against his chest, even though he’s sort of sweaty. 

"I'm sorry," he speaks into her curly hair. 

"You need to stop saying that."

He can feel her hand clutching onto the collar of his vault suit, like he's gonna run through her fingers if she doesn’t hold on tight. But he’s not planning on going anywhere. 

"I am, though. You deserve someone who is gonna love you. Not me. This isn't fair to you."

"You do love me though." She pulls back, keeping her hands where they are. Her eyes are so big and bright. Tate wants to believe she is as happy as she looks.

"Of course I do. But you know what I mean."

And Tate knows that she can't even counter with 'it's not fair to you either,' because it's different. There is no 'fair' option for Tate. There's no way he gets what he wants a hundred percent. They both know that much, and Amata knows well enough not to tell him lies.

"Tate, I'd rather have you, and your love, than a dozen men who want to sleep with me but don't care about me one lick."

"I'm still sorry." He kisses the top of her head.


	2. Welcome to sixteen; welcome to the rest of your life!

The G.O.A.T. isn't exactly hard, but it isn't easy either. It's just...strange. A bunch of questions that don't even make any sense. Tate doesn't have a grandma and he hates baseball. He starts out trying to answer them seriously, because, well, fuck. He doesn't want to face the wrath of his father for fucking this up. Tate starts scraping the sharp nub of his pen into the lacquer of the desk, kicking up plastic filament. About four questions in he doesn't know what is even going on anymore. Why any of this matters?

That and he starts bleeding on his exam. Fuck.

Before the exam started, Butch and the other boys tried to corner Amata. Paul grabbed her waist and she screamed but none of the adults did anything. They never do anything. ‘Horsing around,’ ‘that’s how to know he likes you.’ Tate did something though, grappling Paul around the hips and slamming him to the ground, his head bouncing against the metal floor. Tate'd cocked back his fist to knock him in the face before Butch pulled him off by his shoulders, arms sliding down to wrap around Tate’s torso. Screaming and thrashing, Tate tried to throw down Butch next. But Butch had been ready. On top of that, it was more of a fair fight. Butch was much stronger than Paul, and better at holding Tate off.

"Okay, okay, fuck. We'll leave her alone, Nosebleed. Fuck." Butch said through gritted teeth and Tate’s yelling.

Tate was still ready to bust Butch’s face in for what Paul had done. But Brotch called them in for the exam.

Now Tate sits, like the good student he’s not, bleeding from his nose onto the grayish recycled paper on his desk. He tries to wipe it away before it drips again. Better all over his face than on the G.O.A.T. Maybe. 

He rushes through the final questions so he can just get out of there and wash his face. Amata has already finished and left. She barely spent any time at all. But that's fair enough because she already knows her answers don't matter. If she weren't trying to keep up appearances, she could've just turned in the exam blank.

One more drop of blood hits the paper and Tate can't take it anymore. He circles some shit randomly and gets up. Shoving the exam into Brotch's hands, Tate turns to leave before his teacher tells him to wait a moment, he'll have the results right away.

"Um, I'd rather just go." It's like Brotch can't see the blood all over his face, his swollen lip too. Makes it funny to talk.

Brotch waves him off, "it'll only take a moment." He looks back and forth from the key open on his desk to Tate's exam. He scans across answers with his finger, matching them up.

Tate curls his hands back into fists. Like he's gonna have to fucking fight Brotch too just to clean up the mess from his last fight. Fuck.

"There we go," Brotch smiles, handing Tate back his exam. "Tate, You're the vault's newest chaplain."

"The fuck’s a chaplain?"

But Brotch has already turned his attention to Christine, who is handing in her exam and leaning over the teacher's desk with the zipper on her suit pulled a little down. He doesn’t even take the time to scold Tate for cursing. 

Tate takes his test and leaves. On the way to the bathroom, he tosses it into the trash. He'll have to look up his assignment later or something because he at least knows the vault doesn't have a chaplain now. Right? Whatever.

In the bathroom Tate splashes cold water on his face. It clings to the black hair that is starting to get so long it falls into his eyes. He doesn't want to get it cut because he's starting to realize how much of a copy of his father he is. He doesn't like it. And his dad always keeps his hair short, so maybe he'll grow his out long. As long as the Overseer and his dad will let him. Maybe he'll fight them over it.

He rubs under his nose, trying to get the blood out of his skin. It pills up under his fingers and falls in gross little dark balls into the sink. It's not broken or anything. No one hit his nose, though he knocked his lip when he tackled Paul. Weird that his nose started bleeding. 

The door behind him opens. He can see Butch's reflection in the mirror, a smug smile on his face. 

"There you are," Butch flicks his switchblade open and closed, but Tate isn't really scared of it. He's faster, pretty sure he can knock the knife out of Butch's hand if he tries anything. Were Butch to get a cut in, it would be a fuck of a lot harder to explain to the Overseer why he is carrying a contraband razor, rather than how Tate ended up with his head busted open against the bathroom tile. Tate doesn't think for a second Butch will really use the knife.

"What do you want now, Butch?"

Butch's ears flush pink. "You fucking embarrassed me in front of my gang. I can't let that slide, Nosebleed. Though it's nice to see you living up to your name." Butch takes a step towards Tate.

Tate turns, fast as he can manage, and throws himself against Butch, pinning him to the wall. Shit, shit, he meant to get him on the floor. He's probably heavier than Butch, maybe a little? Okay, nope. He's not a hundred percent sure because Butch's got a good couple of inches on him too. Grabbing Butch by the front of his vault suit, Tate pulls him back away from the wall, intending to throw him to the floor where he'll have the advantage.

Butch is ready, though, and as Tate starts throwing him, shifting their weights around, Butch gets Tate to stumble when he's most vulnerable. Tate crashes back into the sinks. The sink edge hits Tate in the gut but he doesn't have time to catch his breath, just work through the pain and oncoming dizziness. Butch is coming at him and Tate steps to the side, sending him into the sinks instead. Tate sweeps at his legs, this time bringing Butch down to the ground. 

He kicks Butch in the side, which is a dumb mistake because while Butch coughs, he also grabs Tate's ankle, knocking him over too. He takes the fall on his shoulder, managing to avoid smashing his head against the tile.

Butch is worn. Tate isn't. So Tate still manages to pounce on top of Butch, pinning Butch's arms to his sides using his own body weight to augment the strength in his thighs. There's no one to stop him from punching Butch in the face. Hard. He does it twice. The second time something cracks. Butch’s jaw. Tate feels the fracture reverberating through his arm. Butch shrieks. Tate starts, loosening his thighs around Butch's arms in shock.

Fuck. Fuck. He didn't mean to do that.

"Shit, shit, I'm sorry. Fuck." They're going to be in so much trouble. Both of them.

Butch clutches his jaw and tries to keep quiet. He lets out this low, pained groan though. Butch knows well enough that they're both fucked of this gets out. While he's not screaming anymore, he is holding onto his jaw, wheezing too, sharp, heavy breaths of agony.

"I think I have a stim, hold on." Tate lifts his hips up off of Butch to reach into his pocket. He's got a couple of gum wrappers that Amata handed to him, a pen, fuck. The stimpak is in his other pocket. Tate breathes a sigh of relief when he finds it.

Uncapping the needle, Tate babbles along, trying to keep himself calm. "Okay, this is real simple, yeah? I've seen my dad do it a bunch of times. I gotta put it in close to where the break is, though."

Butch glares at him with those striking blue eyes and Tate feels kind of worse. They're a little shiny, like water sliding over ice. Not that Butch is crying. Butch isn't weak like that. But getting your jaw broken, well, that'll make anyone's tear ducts start working. Whether they want them to or not.

He moves his hand away so Tate can put the end of the needle into his jaw. Tate tries to hold his hands steady as the stim pricks Butch's skin. The slide in is easy. They both exhale in sync when Tate depresses the syringe, sending the chem directly into Butch's battered face.

When the drugs hit Butch, his eyelids flutter closed. Tate can see how thick and dark his lashes are. He doesn't mean to stare, but fuck. How is he not supposed to watch? He's fucking handsome, worst part about Butch is that he knows it too. 

Butch's mouth opens a little, like it's pleasurable to take the chems. Tate's never felt like that before with stimpaks, but he's never applied one directly to his face either. 

Blood drips from Tate's nose again, one little red speck falling on Butch's vault suit. He thought that was over for today.

He can see the tip of Butch's pink tongue inside his mouth, fuck. 

Fuck. He scrambles off of Butch. He might be obvious. But if he stays on top of Butch it's going to be a fuck of a lot more obvious if he pops an erection and shit, shit. It's been almost a year since he last cried over this idiot. Tate thought he was over this. 

Luckily, Butch looks still kind of blissed out from the healing chems, and not interested in trying to fight Tate for being a perv. The stimpak should be doing its job. Only a couple of minutes more. Tate looks at his pipboy screen, trying to count out the seconds and stop from remembering Butch being between his thighs.

When Butch finally groans, coming back to himself, Tate crawls over to where he lays on the floor. He hangs his face over Butch's, sure to leave plenty of space. But he wants to be there when Butch opens his eyes. 

"Tate?" Butch still looks kind of out of it.

"Yeah?"

"What the fuck?" Butch coughs.

He can see now that Butch's mouth is full of blood too. All over his tongue and teeth.

"You need to spit out that blood in your mouth."

Out of spite, probably, Butch swallows it. It’ll make his stomach sick.

Sitting up, Butch wraps his arms around his knees. They should stand up, both of them. Someone could come into the bathroom any minute, find them still bloody messes on the floor. Tate wipes at his nose with his shirt sleeve.

"You're an asshole," Butch says it like he's talking about what was for lunch.

Tate laughs, just a little. Because he doesn't want Butch to know how scared he was. "You were gonna do the same to me. I just like, struck preemptively."

"Naw, I wasn't." Butch's eyes settle on Tate's face. "You're just making it worse. You should wash your face."

"That's why I was here in the first place." Tate jumps up, heading to the sink. He lets the water run for a second to warm. While he's scrubbing away the blood, Butch stays seated on the floor.

"I wasn't gonna," Butch says.

He leaves after that.

Tate gets angry again. This time at himself. And Butch too, but now Butch is gone so he can't use him as a punching bag. FUCK. He just barely holds back from screaming. Just, the whole thing hasn't made him feel any better. Maybe even worse because what the fuck does Butch mean? He 'wasn't gonna,' what? Break Tate's fucking jaw? Jump on him and pummel him until they both get confinement until they cool down? Stare too long at Tate's eyelashes?

Looking in the mirror, Tate runs his own finger along his lashes, they're short, black, and stick straight out. No, Butch wouldn't stare.

By the time he reaches the clinic, he's worked himself back up into a rage. Stewing and steaming about the G.O.A.T. and the vault and Butch. And his fucking eyelashes. He clenches and unclenches his fists, ready to put one through the wall. But the walls are metal and he's more fragile than that.

He doesn't pay his dad any mind, going straight back through the clinic to where the patient cots are. He flips the closest one, sheets and surgical tubing flying everywhere. When the cot topples over, he starts kicking it, screaming. He slams it into the wall until it's all bent and broken and useless. Wrecking something completely makes him feel a little bit better. His dad watches him from the other side of the glass.

Tate's tired.

Only now he notices his dad has a patient in the other bed. Stevie Mack, laying on his back and staring at the ceiling. 

"You're fucked up, kid."

Tate doesn't like being called 'kid.' And Stevie isn't even that much older than him. Just in his early twenties.

There's no avoiding his dad, so Tate heads back into the office, wringing his hands. But his dad doesn't look angry, maybe a little tired, but not angry.

"What did you get, son?"

Tate shrugs, pulls at the sleeves on his vault suit. It's starting to feel a little tight. He's been putting on weight the more he works out downstairs. He likes the way it makes his body look. Harder, less like a scrawny kid. 

"Chaplain. I dunno what that is, though."

"Oh, that's wonderful, Tate. That means you'll get to help others when they've lost direction with their lives, you'll perform wedding services, and mitigate disputes. It's a covetable position."

His dad must think he's stupid. Tate knows what his dad is really saying, while spouting a bunch of nonsense about how he should be happy to be named chaplain. 'It's not doctor.'

Tate eyes his father suspiciously. "That doesn't sound like me." And it doesn't. Helping people doesn't sound a damn thing like him. And how is he supposed to help people who are lost, confused? He doesn't know what the fuck he's doing half the time, or why. 

"Give it time." His father's tone makes it clear that his word is final. 

His father doesn't say anything about the blood on his vault suit. No one ever does.


	3. You'd Better Earn that Archive Warning Label or Else the Populcace is Gonna get Antsy

Tate doesn't want to think about anyone when he touches himself. He doesn't wanna. Ideally, he'd just blank out, think about nothing, and touch his cock until he comes in his hands. That's always his intent, since he started a couple of years ago. He doesn’t remember how, though. How did these weird ideas got into his head? Where did he see them, or hear about them?

Breathe in and out, rub his hand over his cock, come. It should be easy. But it never goes that way. He wishes it would.

He slicks his hand with lotion from his dresser drawer. It smells a little like honey, too sticky-sweet. He doesn't like it. 

Pulling his boxers down, he frees his cock, splays his legs a little. When he first touches his hand to his cock, he hisses. He didn't wait long enough for the lotion to warm up. His palm curls around his erection, working in short, sharp strokes. He likes it better when it pulls a little. Like he's fucking really fast. No, don't think about fucking, just sensation. Think about the feel of his hand, how it's getting warmer now, those thoughts are safe. He spreads his legs a little further, pulling up his knee towards his chest.

Rolling his hips up off the mattress, Tate tries to bring himself off before things get too complicated. Too weird in his head. But it's not working, fuck. His mind is blank, yeah, but he’s frustrated.

He tries something else.

His boxers come all the way off, his shirt too. He double checks that his bedroom door is locked. And it's past three in the morning and his dad is probably asleep. Probably. Yeah, it's fine. He'll be okay. 

Tate gets back into bed, spreading his legs more than he did before, unrestricted by his boxers. Pouring more lotion on his hands, he rubs them together this time to warm it up, not so much that it absorbs into his skin. Not so much his palm this time, but his fingers. It's difficult to breathe evenly, heady with anticipation as he is.

It's not that he hasn't done this before, he has. He knows himself, sort of, as much as he can at sixteen. His fingers are slick as he circles around his hole. Waiting doesn’t help. Slowly, he pushes one finger in. It's slow going at first, because he's nervous and kind of scared. He’s always sort of scared. Not that he likes other boys, that doesn’t scare him, but that he likes this in particular. That he thinks about what it would be like to get fucked. He knows enough from the other boys’ talk that you put your cock in a girl. Everyone thinks he’s putting his cock into Amata. But he doesn't know, not for certain that he can, that he could be, with another...fuck, fuck.

But it feels really good. More than that, his brain is buzzing, thinking about how he must look. Spread, with his back against the sheets and his mouth open. His cock hard between his legs and one finger buried inside his ass. It makes him feel....dirty. Weird. In a way he likes.

Panicking a little, he pulls his finger out, wipes it on the tissue he has on the bedside table. Giving up on not thinking at all, he thinks about what Butch might look like out of his vault suit. What Butch might look like in Tate's position. What Butch tries to think about when he’s hard. What Butch tries not to think about.

\--

Amata holds onto one arm, her books tucked under Tate’s other. They're heading down to the reactor level to shoot. They've got about an hour before dinner when no one will miss them. Well, they probably will miss them, but they'll be utterly wrong in their gossip. The gossip Tate catches in bits and pieces circulating around the vault makes his teeth hurt, right to the nerve.

Leaning against the door, the arms of his vault suit tied around his waist, waits Butch. He's playing with his switchblade, trying to look like he hasn't been hanging around waiting for anyone in particular.

Tate mistakenly thinks if they just ignore Butch, he won't say a damn thing. But he's blocking the door.

"Move," Tate barks.

"Why?" Butch asks. It's pretty neutral, at least coming from Butch. Could’ve been accusatory, but it’s not.

"We don't have to tell you," Tate shifts his weight from one foot to the other. He doesn't wanna fight Butch again. Not in the open like this. But he'll do it.

Butch looks Amata up and down, pointedly ignoring Tate. "You know, if Tate ain't keeping up his end of the bargain, let me know, doll."

Not wanting to hit Butch changes to needing to fucking pummel him real quick. But Amata grabs Tate's wrist and hisses "no, Tate," under her breath. His fist still gets halfway to Butch’s smirk because she can’t actually hold him back.

Butch keeps that smug fucking smile on his face as he walks away, promising "another time, doll."

"Let's just go," Amata unlocks the reactor level with her keypass.

Downstairs Tate is so aggravated he punches one of the lockers, leaving a heavy dent in the door. He slides down onto the floor while Amata rubs his back with one hand. She's been through this cycle before. She's an angel. 

Knowing well enough Tate needs to handle himself for a bit, Amata starts shooting. The ping, ping, ping of BBs against the paper and the metal wall beyond is comforting in its regularity. Tate just wants to fall asleep on the floor, but that would be a waste of the hour.

Amata turns and smiles at him when he drags himself up off the floor.

\--

But that's not the end of it. The end of Butch. In the vault there isn’t an end. Butch is there in little ways he wasn't before. Either that or Tate just didn't notice. No, he would have noticed because Butch always smells a little like aftershave and a little like something else too. He’s using the aftershave to cover up the something else. And heat rolls off Butch in waves when he’s near. But that just might be Tate's imagination. 

The point is, Tate doesn't expect Butch to sit next to him in the diner. When he does, Amata, seated across from Tate, doesn't say anything, she just picks over her dinner, putting the warmed, canned peas to one side. She doesn't like them but if Tate is still hungry he'll eat them after he’s done with his own meal.

"Don't you have your 'gang' to eat with?" Tate reaches across the table with his fork to pick at Amata's plate. But he aims at her Salisbury steak instead of her peas. She always dices it into these little pieces first. That gives Tate a tactical advantage in stealing her food. 

Butch shrugs, but when he does, he shifts closer to Tate. Tate tries not to choke on his steak. The unyielding bar of heat that is Butch's body is hard to ignore.

"They need to be taught a lesson. I ain't always gonna be there when they fuck up. Ya hear me?" Butch drinks out of Tate's open water bottle.

Their arms brush against each other as they eat in relative silence. Tate does end up eating all of Amata's peas. And half of Butch's too when he slides them onto Tate's plate with his fork. To make up for Butch’s earlier infraction, Tate sneaks a swig out of Butch's cola.

\--

Butch is turning seventeen. Tate gets an invitation sent to his terminal. He doesn't really know what to do with it, because while he wouldn't mind seeing Butch anymore, not as much, anyway, he's not sure he wants to see Butch and a whole bunch of other people at the same time. He doesn't know why Butch wants to see him around a whole bunch of other people either. 

Since they ate dinner together, once, Butch has kind of been keeping back. Which means they don't scuffle nearly as much as they used to. But the unspoken truce also makes Tate kind of anxious. There's this pit in his stomach every time he sees Butch in passing, a knot that won't unwind because Tate doesn't know what has changed. He sure hasn't. Because when he's alone in bed he still tries desperately to think of no one, then someone who’s not-Butch. He had been succeeding too, for awhile.

It's just that the vault is cramped. And there aren't a lot of options for wank material. And Butch once almost beat him in a fight. Butch still lost, but not as badly as someone else would’ve.

\--

When Tate finds out Amata is invited to Butch’s party too he feels a little less nervous. 

Class got out an hour ago and Tate sits behind his metal and chipboard desk that's got this placard that reads 'VAULT CHAPLAIN' on it with bold, decisive letters cut into brass, but there still ain't anyone around to train him as to what to do. So during apprentice hours he just mostly sits with his chin on his desk and listens to Amata read. The Overseer is more than happy to let her spend time with Tate rather than follow him around.

"No, I am not deceived." Amata reads. Tate has heard this book before. It's his favorite, though he can't articulate why. "In her dark eyes I read a genuine interest in me and in my fortunes. Yes, I feel it; and I may believe my own heart which tells me — dare I say it? — dare I pronounce the divine words? — that she loves me!

"That she loves me! How the idea exalts me in my own eyes! And, as you can understand my feelings, I may say to you, how I honour myself since she loves me!"

"That's the entry from my birthday," Tate observes. Amata hasn't read the date, but he knows it well enough.

She flips the page, even though that's not the end of July 13th's entry. "There isn't one for his."

"Read from March 16th, you know the part I like?"

They're already dressed for the party, but there is another twenty minutes of apprentice hours for all the residents who have just passed their G.O.A.T. And they couldn't be early either so they'll probably wait another twenty minutes after that anyway. 

The folds of Amata's fir-green dress fall over her legs, fanning out on Tate's desk like a lily pad. Tate's slacks are too long at the ankles but he figures no one will notice. He lets them drag on the floor rather than rolling them. If Butch knows anything, they'll all be good and drunk as fast as possible right under security's noses.

"Every word she uttered was a dagger to my heart. She did not feel what a mercy it would have been to conceal everything from me. She told me, in addition, all the impertinence that would be further circulated, and how the malicious would triumph; how they would rejoice over the punishment of my pride, over my humiliation for that want of esteem for others with which I had often been reproached. To hear all this, Wilhelm, uttered by her in a voice of the most sincere sympathy, awakened all my passions; and I am still in a state of extreme excitement." Amata's crisp voice glides over the words with a comfortable familiarity. Tate has asked her to read this passage to him before. He'll ask for it again.


	4. There's a closet with your and my names on it and I mean that literally, figuratively

At the party, the others steer well clear of Tate and Amata when they enter the room. They gather up in tight bunches at the tables around the diner, keeping their backs turned and their faces in conversation. He and Amata shouldn't have come. This is some sort of shitty joke on Butch's part. This is to embarrass them. Nothing changes.

Tate keeps his hand in Amata's, squeezes it tight. "We should go."

"Tate, I can't." Her brown eyes meet his darker ones. No, she can't, they can't leave because in fifteen or twenty years she's gonna be Overseer. She's gonna be Overseer and he's gonna be her husband and Tate feels sick to his stomach. These fucking kids are gonna be looking at her like they do her dad now. Except they'll all be grown. Grown but still terrible.

Tate tries to smile, because Amata already is smiling. There’s little truth in it. But the others don’t have to know that.

When Amata steps towards the compact group of Freddie, Christine, and Paul, Tate is by her side. At first, they're not particularly welcome, but bit by bit the others start melding them in, too caught up with the same stories they've told a dozen times and covert drinks from little canisters to worry about ostracizing Amata and Tate. So when Amata laughs, and it sounds genuine, it makes Tate happy.

A hand comes to rest on Tate's shoulder, a thumb pressing against his neck, right where his shirt collar ends. He spins around, only to knock his face into Butch's.

"Ow, fuck!" Tate yips.

"Fuck, Nosebleed." Butch holds his nose, twisting it a little before taking his hand away. "The fuck?"

"You startled me!" Tate exclaims.

Butch's hand isn't on his shoulder anymore. It's resting on Tate's waist. And while Tate’s flask is filled with shitty warm beer, it suddenly feels like liquor in his blood. Too hot, too much. Butch’s hand doesn't move.

"I wanted you to," Butch hesitates, "just come with me, okay?"

Tate looks back at Amata. She's talking to Susie and Wally, curling her hair around her finger and smiling. Tate figures it's okay to step out for a minute. Tomorrow the spell will probably be broken again and they’ll be the vault’s least popular couple, but for now, this is tolerable.

"Yeah, okay."

Is it weird Butch is leaving his own birthday party? Probably. But not a single one of them is normal. Sane. How could they be down here? They just have to make the best with what they've got. Tate plans on it. He'll cobble together enough bits and pieces of junk to be happy. And he'll make Amata happy. And he won't cry anymore over stupid fucking Butch with his blue eyes and long eyelashes, who leads him down the hall to one of the supply closets.

"Get in," Butch opens the already-unlocked door and motions for Tate to go first. He's hesitant. But the worst that could happen is Butch could start wailing on him and that's not an entirely negative outcome, so Tate steps inside, though not without a suspicious glare, a tilt of his chin so he can actually look into Butch’s eyes.

Butch snaps the door shut behind them, already fiddling with his pipboy light. The utility closet only has the one emergency light overhead and their pipboys are brighter than that. Once illuminated, Tate can see that Butch is smiling, fuck.

Getting up onto one of the sturdier boxes, Butch takes a screwdriver to the air vent patched into the wall over their heads. Whatever he's doing, he's done before. The grate pops right off in Butch's hands. Tate looks away because Butch’s dress shirt starts to ride up.

"Here, put this down somewhere," he hands the grate to Tate, who just tosses it on the closest shelf. Metal on metal makes a horrible racket.

"What the fuck, Butch?"

Butch hops back down off the box. Reaching into his pocket, he pulls out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. "It's still not allowed until I'm eighteen. Which is bullshit."

Tate realizes that's what he's been smelling on Butch for the last year when they get too close.

"And I'm fucking here because?"

"You're still sixteen, Nosebleed, so it's even more juvie delinquent for you. Gotta keep up my reputation." He offers the pack to Tate. Tate doesn’t take it at first; he's never smoked before.

"So you gonna brag to all your buddies you locked me in a closet to smoke. I dunno Butch, that sounds," he leaves off the end.

Butch waves the pack again so Tate will take his before pulling a stick for himself. Putting it to his lips, Butch lights his cigarette first, inhaling and exhaling louder than entirely necessary. He passes the lighter to Tate. Leaning against the closet wall, cigarette hanging from his lips, Butch looks impossibly good. Tate hates noticing.

Tate tries, unsuccessfully, to light his cigarette a couple of times. He can get the lighter to work, that's not the fucking problem. And it burns the paper when he puts the flame to the end. But the damn thing won't light.

"You are fucking killing me." Butch plucks the cigarette from Tate's mouth. "Here, hold this." He passes Tate his cigarette to hold. Putting Tate's cigarette into his mouth, Butch lights it for Tate before handing it back. "You'll get the hang of it." He blows smoke back out.

Tate is definitely not the kind of fuckup that thinks about Butch's lips having been on the cigarette before his. Nope.

Tate sucks in, pouring smoke into his lungs. It burns. Fuck it burns and he doesn't really like it. Tate doesn't want to fucking cough in front of Butch. He tries to hold it back, his eyes watering and nostrils stinging. The only small mercy is the room is still sort of dark, so maybe Butch doesn't notice.

Butch doesn't say anything about Tate's pathetic display. Tate doesn't say anything because his mind is still racing about how to play off this whole thing like it's fine. Like he's not a fucking idiot.

"We should do this more often," Butch comments. Once he finishes his cigarette, he takes the other out from between Tate's tight fingers. It's gone out from inattention, so Butch has gotta light it again.

Butch also doesn't make fun of Tate for having beer in his flask instead of hard liquor. Butch's flask has vodka in it, but they both drink from Tate's instead, passing it between them once Butch is done smoking. Tate still doesn't know how they ended up here, but he doesn’t mind. 

This is maybe the longest they've gone without insulting each other. But that can't last long because Butch ends up asking Tate if Amata's ass tastes as good as it looks. 

Tate shoves Butch hard. Butch trips over the box behind him and smashes his head against the corner of a tall crate. Fuck.

"Fuck, Nosebleed, fuck!"

They get Butch cleaned up, sort of. Tate doesn't want to stick another stim into Butch's head, not after how great the last time went. And they're already a little drunk. Well, Tate is a little drunk and fucking pissed because again, AGAIN, Butch has demonstrated superior tolerance for getting fucked up.

Because they're gonna avoid the stim they have to put pressure on the back of Butch's head to stop the bleeding quick. Butch shucks out of of his dress shirt and pulls off his singlet.

Butch's chest isn't nearly as well-developed as Tate's, so that's some small measure of satisfaction. But he's already got a line of dark hair that runs from the middle of his chest all the way down his navel. And Tate ain't got that. Tate's gotta stop staring. He sets his jaw and scowls because naw, naw, he's not gonna get fucked up over this even when Butch turns around and he just wants to fucking jump inside Butch's skin instead of hold the clean shirt to the back of Butch’s head.

"My hair is going to be fucked," Butch groans. "You're the worst, Tate."

"I'm the worst?" He pushes harder than he needs to into Butch's head wound. "Did you literally fucking hear the words that came out of your damn mouth? Fuck you."

Butch growls, "Sorry, Nosebleed, that I try to talk to you and your dumb ass once in a fucking while."

Tate pushes the shirt too hard again, trying to dig his fingers into the wound. "You can fucking talk to me without insulting Amata."

"I was paying her a fucking compliment."

Tate rolls his eyes. "You're disgusting, Butch."

Butch huffs. Tate pulls away the shirt. The blood on it is still fresh looking. He presses it back. 

"Just like, that's shit we've got in common, right? Fucking girls."

Tate freezes, not even having the presence of mind to hurt Butch again for his needless infraction. The thing is, Tate has never outright lied about this before. Everyone assumes he and Amata have been sleeping together for ages. They just let the rumor go because it doesn't hurt them any. Amata doesn't want someone else; Tate can't get what he wants. So they let people think what they want. No one gets hurt. Tate knows he can lie. He can lie really fucking well if he needs to. But he doesn't know if he wants to lie about this.

"Earth to Tate? What's going on with my fucking head."

"I haven't slept with her," he blurts out, even though Butch has clearly moved on from the subject.

"The fuck?" Butch swings around. "The Overseer lets you crawl all up in her room alone all the time. You two don't even have to sneak around. What the hell? How come you haven't sealed it? It ain't because she's ugly."

Tate screws his eyes shut. This is something he knows he doesn't want to lie about. Conceal, deflect, maybe, for Amata's sake. His dad doesn't need to know every personal fucking detail of his life. Ninety-nine percent of the vault can't know about this. But he wants to tell, someone. 

"I respect her too much." 

He can't. He can't tell Butch because Butch will tell everyone else. And then Tate's plan for the rest of his miserable vault life will be fucked. He's gotta do the best with the circumstances he's been given. He's not about to make it harder on himself.

\--

Tate's eating lunch with his dad when Butch slides into the booth next to him. He gets in real close, brushing his arm against Tate's. Their hips touch too. Tate can't even complain because at least it breaks up the monotony of relaying the first half of his day to his father. Why his dad needs to know every fucking detail of his life is beyond him.

"Hello, Butch," his dad looks unimpressed with their guest.

"Hey, doc." Butch reaches over Tate's plate to grab his water bottle from the other side. He drinks half of it in one go. Tate can't bother to be angry at him for it. "I came to borrow your kid."

James' suspicion is clear as day. He's already spoken to Tate about minimizing his time with DeLoria. 'That boy is a bad influence,' as if Tate just has reams of people wanting to make friends with him. He's not even sure Butch wants to make friends with him, even though they sort of interact more than they did before.

Butch smiles at James and grabs Tate's arm. "I'll bring him back in one piece, promise." Pulling at Tate, they both slide out of the booth without further explanation. James doesn't say anything, but Tate can't imagine he's happy.

They go to the supply closet, close the door. Butch gets up on the box, removes the grate. He insists it helps dissipate the smoke better. Tate is unconvinced. 

"I'd make you do it for me, but you ain't tall enough." 

Tate punches Butch in the ass for that, not hard. But instead of turning and jumping into Tate's face, Butch just laughs.

Getting off the box, he lights his cigarette. This time he doesn't offer one to Tate. And there's no booze, so Tate's got nothing to do but stand around and watch Butch smoke. It's exceedingly awkward. 

"What did you need me for?"

"Company?" Butch says it like it should be obvious. Like they’re obvious.

Tate's sure they're anything but.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always comments and kudos are super super appreciated. They basically make my day.


	5. Between a rock and a hard place there's always the option to just let yourself get crushed

“Your hair is too fucking long.” Butch is supposed to be at apprentice hours. Which means he shouldn't be shuffling into Tate’s office, his vault suit in rumpled disarray while his hair still looks perfect. He smells heavily of smoke, which suggests the chaplain’s office wasn't his first stop on his delinquency tour.

Tate looks up from his computer monitor. There are these files from the last chaplain he’s been trying to sift through. But they’re dated about seventy-five years ago. None of the notes make any sense to Tate. More and more this position feels like it's made up, some sort of fake duty to keep him out of other people’s business instead of messing with their lives. But from what he can tell, his job is to mess with people’s lives. To intervene.

“It's fine.” Tate’s hair is starting to reach down the back of his neck. As it gets longer it lays even flatter under its own weight. The more his dad tells him to go get it cut, the less Tate wants to do it. He has to tuck it behind his ears to keep it out from in front of his eyes. Even then there’s no guarantee his vision won’t be obscured. 

Butch rolls his eyes. “You realize cutting hair is like, my fucking job, right? So let me do it.”

“What? No, I’m not letting you near my hair, Butch.” Tate slides his chair away from his desk, back into the wall.

“You like looking like a girl? Come on, let me cut it. Not here, like, over in the shop. But you can’t go around looking like that.”

Self-consciously Tate touches the ends of his hair. It’s been so long since he last had it cut that the ends are starting to split. “Nah, I like it just fine.”

“Bullshit,” Butch glares at him. 

Leaning over the desk, Butch knocks over Tate’s empty water bottle to grab at his hair. He gets a good fistful of it and pulls so hard Tate’s chair rolls forward until his stomach crashes against the edge of the desk.

Pissed, Tate jumps up, some of his hair coming out in Butch’s fist in the process, and launches himself over the desk, taking Butch to the ground with him. It's less elegant than it looked in Tate’s head, but it works. Butch gets the wind knocked out of him and Tate pins his shoulders to the ground.

But Butch has gotten marginally better at getting his ass kicked since the last time they fought. Kicking up with one leg between Tate’s, he dislodges Tate’s leverage advantage to roll them both over so he's on top instead. He doesn't go for the face. At least not this time, but he pulls up Tate’s shoulders before knocking him back against the floor. Tate litters obscenities across Butch’s face before spitting. But gravity makes that gross for both of them. He hits Butch, but there's a price to pay as Tate’s saliva drips back onto his own face.

They're both so shocked that their grip on each other loosens. Tate wipes his face with his hand. Butch sits back on his heels.

“I hate you,” Butch sneers.

“Then why are you here?” 

Tate sits up, the back of his head throbs, but when he touches it his fingers come away clean, no blood.

“Why don't you want your hair cut?”

“You'll make fun of me if I tell you,” Tate snaps.

“Won't.”

Tate can't help but laugh. They just instigated a fistfight over some dumbass shit. They've fought over even less than that before. There doesn't seem to be a way for the two of them to coexist in any peace. Except when Butch slides in next to Tate in the diner, pulls at his arm, tells him to come. It's absurd.

“I don't wanna look like my dad. I don't like it when I do.”

Butch snorts. “Give yourself some credit. And give me more. I ain't about to make you into him. And like, he's old. And you're not. And.” Butch leaves off there. “And I have an idea, okay?”

\--

It's not until the next day that Tate makes it to the shop to have Butch deal with his hair. He hopes he doesn't come to regret it, but having just, so much hair is starting to get unmanageable. He can't avoid having it cut forever.

Butch sits on the counter, doing something with his pipboy. The way he's twirling and pressing the dial makes it look like he's typing something out. It would be easier to do on a terminal, but there aren't any terminals in the little cramped barber shop. When Tate comes in, Butch looks up from whatever it is he’s doing.

Butch’s face lights up, “Good, Nosebleed, you came. Thought I was gonna have to fuck with you again. Sit down.”

Tate is still apprehensive, his palms warm, but worst case scenario, he can still just punch Butch in the face and make a break for it. It’s his catch-all solution to any problem, at least as far as Butch is concerned.

“Wait, when was the last time you washed your hair?” Butch asks.

“Um, like, three days ago?”

Butch picks up a cardboard box from the counter and scans the text on it. “Okay, yeah that should be fine. Really though? Three days?”

Tate about decks him just for the comment.

But Butch manages to get Tate into the chair without either of them losing an eye or needing a stim. Small victories, right? And Tate’s so annoyed that he forgets how close Butch has to stand to him to do his ‘work.’ What kind of fucking job is cutting people’s hair anyway? He guesses more work than he currently does. Tate does approximately nothing.

Butch mixes something terrible smelling In a bowl with a plastic spatula. It takes Tate a second to recognize what it is.

“Bleach?” He wrinkles up his nose.

“Yeah,” Butch puts the bowl on the counter, grabbing a black-bristled flat brush instead. “I was gonna surprise you. But how do you feel about being a blond? Might make the outside of your head match what's on the inside.”

“Fuck you,” Tate snaps, “that’ll make my hair blond?”

Butch smiles, “so that a yes?”

“You were gonna change my hair color without telling me?”

“You said you didn't want to look like your dad? This will totally work.”

“Okay but like, what about my eyebrows? They’ll still be black?”

Butch swirls the brush around in the bleach concoction, picking up a healthy amount on the bristles. “Trust me, it'll be a good look on you.”

Tate considers Butch’s proposition for a moment. Yeah, okay, so that's one way to get his haircut and not have it look at all like his dad’s. And what, it's just hair, it'll grow back. He won't be stuck with it forever. Unless Butch like, gets bleach in his eyes and blinds him. But Tate's pretty sure that even without his eyes he can still beat Butch to a pulp. 

“Okay,” Tate sits back in the chair. “Do it.”

Butch puts on gloves before he starts smearing the bleach onto Tate’s head. He's careful to lift the hair up in bunches to make sure to get the underside too. With the ends he's sort of careless, mumbling about how many inches he's gonna take off when he goes to cut. Tate just sort of zones out, liking the attention in sort of an abstract way. Makes the back of his neck sort of tingle. Not because it's Butch, but also because it's Butch. Even though it's already past four in the afternoon, Butch still smells sharply of aftershave and duly of smoke. At first Tate concentrates on not getting hard, the way Butch surrounds him to work, the sound of Butch breathing, the scrape of the brush, the way Butch’s scent comes and goes. But after the first five minutes, he calms down. Tate nearly falls asleep towards the end.

“Okay, sit up now we gotta wait.” Butch peels off his gloves, tossing them in the bin and starts fiddling with his pipboy again. “Don't touch it.”

For a while they don't say anything. Butch keeps doing whatever it is he's doing on his wrist. Tate just stares at the wall ahead.

“How long is this gonna take?” Tate slides down in the chair, legs stuck out in front of him and his ass almost to the edge of the seat.

Butch shrugs. “Like, another forty minutes or something.” They've already been at it for fifteen.

“The fuck, Butch, you couldn't warn me? We’re gonna miss dinner.”

“And, so? It ain't my fault your hair is so dark. And then I still gotta cut it after that.”

Tate groans. This sucks. This sucks. This sucks.

Another ten minutes pass and Tate is restless again.

“What the fuck are you doing with your pipboy?”

“Why do you care, Nosebleed?”

“I don't, but someone trapped me in a shitty converted closet for two fucking hours.”

When Butch smiles, Tate suddenly forgets to be angry. It only takes a second for him to come back to himself. What a fucking idiot he is.

“Okay,” Butch starts, “but you can't like, show anyone, ya hear?”

“Okay,” Tate shifts around in the chair, sitting back up straight.

But Butch doesn't say anything. He just goes back to his pipboy, typing something out. After a minute he looks up. Tate’s still waiting for an explanation when his pipboy lights up unexpectedly. 

271257 > 130758: cool right

“How?” Tate looks up from his screen. 

Butch looks really fucking pleased with himself, eyes sparkling, “I've been going through a bunch of old trashed terminals. Found some stuff out about how the network inside the vault works. Figured it out. You're the first person I've tried it with.”

“Butch, if you can do shit like this, why the fuck are you cutting hair?”

It's Butch’s turn, apparently, to be angry. “Fuck you.”

But Butch isn't that mad. He explains to Tate how to send a message back, leaning over his shoulder to point out where to navigate to on his pipboy, what ‘ports to open.’ Tate just blindly follows Butch’s directions.

“Okay, back up, let me type something and try it.” 

Butch steps away, his scent traveling too.

130758 > 271257: Suck my dick.

Tate realizes too late that maybe that wasn't the best message to send. Like maybe Butch’ll take it wrong, even though Tate’s not entirely sure which way around is the wrong one.

271257 > 130758: you wish

Somehow, even though typing on the pipboy is cumbersome as hell, talking to Butch this way is easier. Tate practically bounces in the barber’s chair as he types his response, it may not be as clever as he thinks, but it makes Butch smile.

130758 > 271257: You wouldn't be able to handle it.

Tate doesn't notice the minutes creeping so much anymore, not with the back and forth of the messages. Butch leans against the countertop while he types. He's much faster at it than Tate, his fingers practically dancing with the dial.

271257 > 130758: i’ll be the judge of that

“Okay,” Butch finally speaks aloud again. You're done, stick your head in the sink.”

“I'm not fucking-” Sudden memories of earlier bullying episodes flood Tate’s mind. When he wasn’t this strong. When numbers meant everything. And Butch had allies. Tate didn’t.

“No, Nosebleed, like backwards so I can wash the bleach out.” Butch starts arranging his kit for cutting, little blades and scissors and it makes Tate fucking nervous all over again.

“I can just go shower and wash it myself.”

“Let me do my fucking job, Tate.”

Tate exhales, getting up from the chair and into the other one near the sink. It's sort of a cobbled together thing. Butch stands to one side and turns on the water, letting it run until it's warm while Tate just waits.

“Don't get any ideas. The sink is for the girls, you know, the hairdresser. But like, I gotta wash the bleach out. So like, let's do this. Tell me if the water is too hot.”

Butch pushes on Tate’s forehead until his hair is under the stream, some of it rolling against his scalp. It's not too hot, it's sort of just right.

“Now stay still, and be quiet.” 

Pouring shampoo into one hand, Butch gets to work. He’s gotta half lean over Tate to reach his hair. His singlet is kinda loose and sort of falls away from his body when he leans. Butch is maybe too rough massaging the shampoo into Tate’s scalp, and Tate’s pretty sure he keeps catching him with his nails too. But he sort of...likes it. The way it pulls. Fuck.

“Your hair is really thick.”

Tate just grunts. He doesn't want to make conversation anymore. But he doesn't want to be alone right now either. And he really doesn't want to get hard, so he just thinks about how hungry he is, and pissed off that Butch made him miss dinner.

Butch finishes washing, toweling off Tate’s hair until he makes Butch stop. He can fucking do it himself. It's mostly dry by the time Butch pushes him back into the chair. 

“I gotta cut it, then you can see.”

Tate keeps his eyes closed while Butch snips. The sound of metal on metal. Clumps of hair fall onto Tate’s chest and lap. There really was a lot of it. More than Tate realized. He had just like, gotten out of the habit of looking at his face that much.

“Okay, cool.” Butch passes Tate a hand mirror to look. “It'll still need to dry more, but that takes fucking forever apparently.”

Tate looks at himself in the mirror. Butch was right, he does look different. While he cut Tate’s hair, it's not super short, still falling a little bit into his eyes, strands of it brushing just at his ears. More than that, it's a yellowy-blond color, obviously unnatural, but he sort of likes it. And Butch was right about the eyebrows too, they don't matter.

He wants to thank Butch, but then he might get some crazy idea like Tate is gonna actually trust him from now on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments and kudos are always very much appreciated! Also we may be making progress with these two idiots...


	6. Being Willfully Obtuse is No Way to Get What You Want (What is it You Want?)

His father doesn’t approve of the haircut. In fact, he nearly yells at Tate about it. Doesn’t though, he just curls his hands into fists and tells him to march straight back to get it fixed. But there isn’t any fixing it. Tate’s pretty sure it won’t get back as black as it was until it grows out. Plus, his dad’s disapproval is enough to convince Tate that this was a very good idea. He should do it again.

Tate and Amata take all their usual precautions before heading down to the reactor level. Look both ways, listen for footsteps, look both ways again, Amata using her keycard while Tate keeps on looking. Never has it failed them. But over the last couple of months Butch must have gained some sort of secret stealth powers or some shit because two steps down and he comes right up behind Tate, laying his arms over his shoulders and sticking his nose into the back of Tate’s head. The both of them nearly go flying down the stairs together. As it is, they drop four steps before Tate gets hold of the railing and braces them from further rapid descent. 

Amata, somehow, is spared. She stifles her laugh in her hand while closing the door. It takes her a second to revert back to seriousness. Because, yeah, sure Tate nearly falling to his death is fucking hilarious, but Butch finding out about the shooting range is less so. 

“Whatcha doing?” Butch rocks back on his heels, releasing Tate before sticking his hands in his pockets. 

Tate turns around. Butch is still on the higher step, which makes him really fucking tall in comparison. It’s petty as hell, but Tate goes up two steps to make up the difference. 

“It’s none of your fucking business, Butch.”

“It looks like you don’t want this to be no one’s business, so better tell me before I get some loose lips.” Butch comes up to Tate’s step. Fuck, it’s only a couple of inches, but it still feels like more.

Amata, of all people, betrays Tate. “Come on, Butch, let’s go.” She stomps down the stairs, pushing between both of them as they square off. “If you could wait until you’re off the steps before bashing each other’s faces in, that would be great.”

“Wait! Amata,” Tate takes off after her. She’s going two steps at a time and hits the floor first. Tate takes her by the shoulder and turns her around. “What are you doing?”

She drops the volume of her voice. “Making friends.”

Tate loosens his grip on her shoulder, letting his hand drop to his side. Ain't much of a friend, if you ask him.

“I would think you’d want to make friends too,” she smiles.

Butch meets them at the base the stairs. He stands behind Tate, a little too close. Enough that a half-step back and their bodies would be pressed together. Tate shouldn't think about this because it's certainly not where they’re headed.

Tate leads the way around the bend to where the shooting range is. “Butch if you fucking tell anyone.” He starts working the numbers in the lock while Amata sets the targets. “I'll come to your room and cut the skin from your kneecaps.”

“What an...oddly specific threat, Nosebleed.”

It is the best he could do on the fly. At least it sounds convincingly threatening. 

Pulling the BB gun from the locker, Tate lets Amata take over. Fuck, if Butch knew he's a terrible shot after about seven years of not practicing, he'd never live it down. Because while Butch might keep his mouth shut about the gun, he would never keep quiet about Tate’s ineptitude.

“Woah, okay, so, this was not what I was expecting.”

“What exactly did you think went on down here, Butch?” Amata asks. With the gun ready, she steps into place at the range.

“Dunno, knitting circle, literary debate, Tate already told me you two don't fuck.”

Amata lowers the gun to make sure she gets a good glare in on Tate. 

“No, I guess we don't.” She hits the target twice in close succession, a warning if there ever were one. Tate’s not sure though if it's meant to strike fear in Butch or in him. “Here, Butch, you want to try?” She holds the gun vertically for Butch to take if he wants.

Tate sits on the table, fingers curled around the uneven edge, watching Butch handle the gun. He's too self-conscious to work out with Butch around. Amata walks Butch through the basics of aiming, stance, pulling the trigger. Surprisingly, Butch doesn't bitch. He takes Amata’s instructions, obviously excited to shoot.

They look good together, Butch and Amata. Butch is tall, well, not that tall, dark, and handsome. Amata is all petite curves and a winning smile. They’re picturesque, side by side. Like a pre-war advertisement of an ideal couple buying their first Mr. Handy for their new suburban home, before the fading gets to the paper, making it brittle-yellow at the edges. Idly, Tate wonders, if they had a kid, would the baby have Butch’s eyes?

Butch laughs at something Amata says. The smile twists Tate’s stomach into knots, a hard lump he can't dislodge.

Lesson over, Amata leaves Butch to shoot on his own. She kicks at Tate's foot, asks him what's wrong.

“I think he likes you. I think that's what this is about.”

Amata scrunches up her face. “I don't think this is about me, Tate.”

He brushes off the implication for now. “We’ll talk about it later.”

“Aw yeah!” Butch pumps his fist, drawing attention to himself.

Tate can make out where Amata’s shots landed previously, all nestled in the center. Butch’s fan out a bit from there. His shot isn't perfect, but it's already better than Tate’s, little pinprick holes scattered around the outer rings of the target. Butch practically slides over to Tate and Amata, his hair bouncing as he crashes into the table, nearly knocking Tate off. He holds out the gun. “Your turn now, right, Nosebleed?”

“Naw,” he pushes the gun back towards Butch, “I get to do it plenty, you have fun.”

Butch looks like an excited child. Well, they are, right? He might be seventeen but that's still not grown. The six months between their ages has always felt like a lot to Tate. Butch is always just that little bit more. But maybe the gulf isn't so vast, insurmountable. Tate’s lungs flutter at Butch’s smile, broad and heavy, like it'll drag down his face as he grows older. But right now, he has the strength to keep it up, 

Fuck, fuck Tate wants to lean forward. To know how Butch’s smile tastes. Maybe it’ll rub off on him. Maybe he can rub off on Butch. Heh.

“It's out of ammo,” Butch observes.

Tate at least knows how to load the gun right, so he offers out his hand to take it. Butch passes it over. It's amazing how agreeable he is when he's getting what he wants.

“Show me, yeah? So I can do it myself next time.”

“Sure, yeah, okay.” Tate motions for Butch to sit next to him on the table so he can watch. Amata keeps messing with him, kicking gently at his toes while he tries to focus on the gun.

He slides the safety into place, showing Butch how it should latch. “Cause you don't want to accidentally shoot yourself in the dick.” He only takes four of five BBs at a time in his hand, to make sure he can control them all as he slides them into the opened chamber. There’s not a wrong way around to put them, and they can't really get bunched up. Tate feels sort of silly, having to walk Butch through a process that is actually so simple. But Butch had asked. Tate closes up the chamber. “You’ll obviously unlock the safety again before you shoot.”

Butch watches him with rapt attention, his mouth closed. Seated like this, Butch looks even taller. Tate tries to sit up straighter, since Butch is sort of hunched. It doesn't help that much. He passes the gun back over.

“Are you sure you don't wanna?”

“I'm good.”

Butch hops off the table and goes back to the range. Amata takes his place at Tate’s side. She rests her head on Tate’s shoulder, her hair puffing up in his face. He doesn't mind.

“Enjoying the show?” Amata asks.

Tate doesn't have to look to know she's beaming. Well, she's clearly taking in the view. The way Butch’s vault suit clings to his body, his shoulders, ass, and thighs. It makes Tate’s palms sweat against the table. Nobody ever wears the right size suit. 

Tate's starting to believe that ‘right sizes’ don't exist. How could they though? There's like, this closet with all these unused suits stitched two-hundred years ago by hands that probably didn't even know what they were for. Some of the clothes in the vault, like the really really old clothes, shit people brought in from the outside when they ran, have tags on them. The tags say where they were made. Honduras, Vietnam, China. He's seen these places labeled on Old-world maps. Some of the books they've got have maps like, printed in color inside the covers too? He knows these places are far away from “Washington D.C.” And he knows “Washington D.C.” used to be upstairs, on the other side of the door. Honduras is a little closer than the other places. China is the reason they’re down here. The old, degraded printed pamphlets he found in another closet, on the rec room level, let him know that China are the ones who ruined the world. He doesn't know much other than that about it.

The vault suits don't have tags in them like that. But Tate still wonders about the people who got the sizes all wrong.

“He's still an asshole,” is the only thing Tate can come up with as a reply.

Amata shrugs, “I never said he wasn't.”

By the time Butch gets finished, it’s way past time they should be at dinner. Tate’s already wondering how the rumors are gonna change, what possible explanation the residents are gonna spin to explain this one away.

\--

“Tate? Son, do you have some time?” James stands in the doorway of the chaplain's office. His shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He’s always been a little paler than Tate, it makes the black hair on James’ arms more distinct. 

Tate has nothing but time. Endless reams of it cascading by. Tate feels like he’s got a pen in his hand but nothing worth writing down. He’s given up on this job. He’ll finish his classes, come to his office, do nothing at all.

“Yeah, sure,” he doesn’t take his feet off the desk. If it really is ‘his’ desk, he can do what the fuck he wants. 

James takes the opposite chair, the one meant for people who need chaplain-ing or whatever. He looks at Tate, then his feet, then back at Tate. “Really, now?”

Tate slides his feet to the floor, but doesn’t sit up in his chair any better, letting his feet disappear under the desk until his ass is just on the very edge of the chair. James doesn’t bother correcting him again.

“I’ve heard you’ve been spending more time with the DeLoria boy?”

While not entirely sure what he had been expecting, Tate knows it isn't that question. Who his friends are (and more often, aren’t) has never been his dad’s business. His dad has never really shown an interest in his social life. Except when the trouble he gets into is so great that security makes James intervene. 

“So?” Tate wishes he had something, anything, to help him look busy. But there’s nothing.

James sighs, “It’s not that I don’t want you to get along better with the other boys. But I just don’t think Butch is a very good choice for a friend.”

Tate’s not sure how his dad gets off on thinking he knows anything about the intricacies of teenaged-vault-social-politics. But then again, his dad was a teenaged vault-boy once too, right? But that must have been a long time ago. And the boys were different. And his dad’s not like him.

“It’s the vault, dad. I don’t have a whole lotta choices.”

“Of course you do, son.”

What the fuck is he even on about? James knows well enough that isn’t the case. “Dad, there are like, four guys in the vault my age.”

James isn’t budging, crossing his arms over his chest. “Tate, you’re nearly a man now. Maybe, maybe it won’t be so lonely when you’re a little older.”

He means, ‘when you marry Amata,’ but he won’t say it out loud.

“I like Butch,” Tate winces. He didn’t mean for it to come out that way. But it’s an innocent enough mistake. James doesn’t say a thing about it.

“He’s just not the sort to...last very long. He’s pushing his luck as it is. And I don’t think he’s a very good influence on you. I don’t think he makes for a very good friend. I only want what’s best for you, Tate.”

Tate mumbles that he knows, because that’s the quickest way to get his father to leave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh man, I actually was like, so fucking touched by how many people commented on the last chapter. Ah, I really really appreciate the people who take the time to comment/kudo and, man, just, thanks.


	7. The air is recycled, so are the clothes, but maybe the mistakes are new

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a note, there are a couple of references to self harm as correlated with manic periods in this chapter. Not as an act of depression/suicide attempt, but in the wake of excessive emotion/energy. They include scratching and throwing his body against an immovable object.

Tomorrow is Tate’s seventeenth birthday. Butch said he’d bleach Tate’s hair again, so the roots don’t show. They’ll do it first thing so that Tate’s hair has time to dry before the party. 

Tate doesn’t even want the party. He just wants to spend time with Amata. Or with himself. Butch can come too, he guesses. Not that Butch would want to be seen with Tate in public. But Tate doesn’t want a bunch of people who still regard him with suspicion watching his every move. They still remember when he was twelve and he scratched up and down his arms with blunt nails until they bled. Tate tries to remember why he did that? Something about forgetting to do his homework? And he didn’t want to tell Brotch that he had forgotten. So he hurt himself until it was no longer an issue. The work forgotten as he was shuffled back to his father. 

Strange to think about, now.

He’s restless in his bed. For a few days now he’s barely slept. His mind keeps racing, racing, circling back around to the start. He thinks about Amata’s hair, the swell of her breasts under her vault suit. She knows, of course, has since they were ten or so, that Tate likes boys. Since he told her he wanted a date with Butch for his birthday, maybe before. That was so stupid. Tate wonders if he’ll have to touch her, though, when they’re married. Even though she knows. If he’ll have to put his cock in her. If they’ll have to make a baby. That’s all he ever hears, in subtle ways, echoing off the walls of the vault, bouncing between the adults too like a bullet that ricochets but without any force behind it. Eerie, wrong.

There are other possibilities for Tate’s future. Not real ones though. Just, fantasies, stuff, fuck. Tate rolls onto his stomach in a vain attempt to keep his erection down. He’s masturbated almost every night this week. Keeps hoping one of these times will wear away the restlessness. But his dick is just rubbed raw and it hurts when he gets dressed in the morning. During the day, the pain is a little better, he doesn’t have to think about it as much. But in the dark lonesome, it’s all he can focus on. 

He angles his hips up off the mattress, slipping his hand between the sheets and his body, dipping into his boxers. His cock is already hard. He whines into the pillow, then bites down. 

There’s no use in pretending. It will only draw out the inevitable. The faster the can get off, the faster he might get to sleep. Tate curls his fingers around his cock, hard, smooth in his hand. He hisses at how raw it still is. Rocking back onto his heels, he comes up on all fours, the sheet over his back slips away. The cool air of the night cycle brushes against his back, his ass. Fuck. He wants to get through this, he wants to sleep. He doesn't want to feel so fucking alone.

“Butch,” he doesn't bring his voice up above a whisper. This is harmless. Just a fantasy. The vault is claustrophobic. Butch is handsome. His hands are bigger than Tate’s, have been almost always. Even when they were little. 

He's stronger than Butch. He knows it for certain now because sometimes they catch each other off guard on the reactor level. They grab at each other's arms, suits, and hair. They tussle rather than screech and claw. There used to have to be a provocation for them to fight. But that's optional now. Now it's...fun? Tate always wins, because Tate is stronger, even though he's still shorter. 

Because he's stronger, it means, it means he would have to let Butch. Butch couldn't just take from him. Butch couldn't force him. Tate would have to give, to yield. 

He thinks about Butch behind him, running his bigger hands over Tate’s back, down to his ass, the tops of Butch’s thighs pressed against the back of Tate’s. How warm they would both be, so close. They're close too when they fight, so it’s almost the same. Tate almost knows. And he knows what Butch’s name tastes like in his mouth, but not what Butch’s mouth would feel like against his flesh. And he wants to. Fuck, he wants to.

Tate wants to know what it would feel to have Butch inside him. He’s reasonably sure, after some experimenting on himself, that yeah, yeah, someone else’s cock would fit in him. And that, fuck, fuck, that’d he’d like it. So he thinks about that. Because he’s done fighting it. He’s done pretending like he doesn’t like it when Butch, specifically Butch, is over him or under him but always between his legs, against his body. And Tate chooses that, because he’s stronger, because he could stop Butch if he didn’t like it. But he would like it. He’s sure.

Coming in his hand, sharp, on the edge of painful, Tate’s other arm shakes, his legs too. He reaches for a tissue to clean himself. His pipboy screen lights up.

Tate doesn’t even wait to make sure his hand is properly clean. He sits back, legs folded under him, and reads the message. 

271257 > 130758: i cant sleep you up?  
130758 > 271257: Yeah.  
271257 > 130758: excited?  
271257 > 130758: sorry thats a stupid question  
271257 > 130758: i got nothing  
271257 > 130758: to say

Butch isn’t giving him the time to type anything out. Tate’s not as quick with the dial yet. Still, there’s something, fuck, charming about the messages. Tate knows he’s reading too much into it. But at least they’re friends. For now.

130758 > 271257: It’s not a big deal. It’s only seventeen. It’s not important.  
271257 > 130758: well am i the first person to wish you happy birthday?

Tate smiles.

130758 > 271257: Yeah.  
271257 > 130758: good now GO THE FUCK TO SLEEP  
130758 > 271257: You messaged me first!  
271257 > 130758: NIGHT NOSEBLEED

No more messages come, but Tate keeps on staring at his screen, long after it has dimmed. 

\--

Butch fixes Tate’s hair with only a few cursory grunts. “Same like last time?” 

Yeah, same.

Except this time they don't exchange messages through their pipboys, smiling about their secrets. They don't taunt and tease. Tate doesn't know what's wrong. He doesn't want to ask either. After slicking the bleach through Tate’s hair, Butch checks his pipboy and leaves.

130758 > 271257: What the fuck is wrong with you?

Tate doesn't dare leave the shop because he's got fucking bleach in his fucking hair and it's starting but burn and most of all FUCK BUTCH. With nowhere to go, Tate steams where he is. No message from Butch returns.

Butch's kit is still on the counter. Tate grabs up the scissors, opening the blades wide. He stabs the pointy end of the blade into the thick, green vinyl of the barber’s chair. Ripping down, the fabric tears apart, screeching under his assault. The white-puffy filling starts spilling out like a cloud of entrails. Eviscerated. He does it again. And again, until the cushion is decimated.

After thirty minutes, Butch comes back. He looks at the mangled chair, clenches his jaw, and tells Tate it's time to wash the bleach out.

Tate doesn't let him, storming to the showers to do it himself. 

\--

No one comes to Tate’s party but Amata. It's the best of all possible worlds. Tate eats the vault-provided cake until he’s sick to his stomach. The icing he doesn't like, scraping it away from the cake and leaving it in a pile on the side of the platter. Before Amata is done eating, Tate smears half of the icing on Amata’s face. It musses up her makeup. She smashes the other half into the front of Tate’s dress shirt, laughing the whole time.

The white sugar clings to her curls, even after she tries to brush it away. Tate knows for certain how much he loves her. Now, always. He won't forget. He loves her much so that it fills up his lungs completely, ready to burst. 

They dance to the random songs playing through the jukebox. Tate hates all of them; Amata knows the words by heart. She lays her head, icing and all, against Tate’s chest. He keeps his hands firmly on her hips. The songs loop around a second time. Tate realizes he doesn't like them because it's been the same twenty-four or so songs his whole life. And none of them are applicable to him. The jukebox goes out. They don't start it again.

“I got you a present.” Amata takes a half step away, keeping hold of Tate’s wrist. 

He follows after her, just to the other end of the diner. Her gift is wrapped in bright paper, tied with a ribbon that she sometimes wears in her hair. She holds the present in both hands, though it's not large, waiting for Tate to take it.

“Thank you,” he really doesn't care what it is. That it's from Amata is enough to satisfy him.

Tate’s careful with the ribbon, working open the knot. He hands it back to Amata. Her dress has no pockets, so she ties her hair back up with it. The paper is glossy under Tate’s fingers. He shreds it.

It's a book, one that he hasn't seen before. At least, he doesn't think. It's by Johann Goethe, like the other book, The Sorrows of Young Werther. The one Amata reads to him. He flips through the pages idly, thanking Amata again. She knows well enough he won't read it himself. 

Plucking the book from his hands, she sits on the table top, leaving enough space for Tate to squeeze in next to her. He plants his hand by her opposite hip, the length of his arm behind her back. Amata turns to the first page.

“Again you show yourselves, you wavering Forms,/Revealed, as you once were, to clouded vision./Shall I attempt to hold you fast once more?/Heart’s willing still to suffer that illusion?” She stops to take a swig out of Tate’s flask. It's only beer. “You crowd so near! Well then, you shall endure,/And rouse me, from your mist and cloud’s confusion:/My spirit feels so young again: it’s shaken/By magic breezes that your breathings waken.” 

Her voice isn't quite as smooth as when she reads about Werther, but she's had more practice with that text. Tate rests his chin on her shoulder. He wonders if he could write poetry. But what even about? His life is no great tragedy, just little inconveniences added all together until they drive him mad. The endless stretch of the life his ancestors lucked into.

He can't focus on Faust, though through no fault of Amata’s. The next time she reads, he’ll pay better attention. 

Butch is no Charlotte. And he is no Werther. Or maybe the roles are supposed to be reversed? Tate’s not sure.

“Amata?”

She looks up from the book.

“Yeah, Tate?”

“What is it you want most in the world?”

Amata closes the book around her well-kept fingers. Her nails are painted bright pink. Her lips a darker red. 

“I want to be a good leader, when the time comes. I want you and I to be happy, always. I want to stop thinking about the world outside.”

Tate doesn't point out that they’re not even happy right now.

\--

Butch, like everyone else, doesn't come to the party. But Tate does see him after. 

After he kisses Amata goodbye on the cheek, he shuffles back to his quarters. His dad asks him how the party went, as if oblivious to Tate’s social standing in the vault. Tate mumbles out, “fine, I'm tired.”

His dad makes an offhand remark that he thought Tate would be out later. It's already past eleven. Tate repeats that he's tired. He wants to go to bed. 

The overhead light in his room is already on. Butch sits on the edge of his bed, hands clasped in his lap. How the fuck did he get in?

He's in a tee and jeans, rather than his vault suit. Where Butch got jeans is anyone's guess. He’s industrious, sort of, in his own way. His hair isn't done, falling instead in a loose, soft pile on top of his head, fanning out like down.

The bile of this morning’s anger scorches at Tate’s throat. Cut through with the realization that Butch is in his bedroom, in his bed. And, and he doesn't know why. Butch just stares straight ahead, like he can see right through Tate. Does he know? Fuck, does he know last night, the night before, how Tate touched himself, thinking of Butch’s hands on him?

“You didn't have to wreck my shit, Nosebleed.”

"You didn't have to fucking treat me like a piece of shit," Tate hisses. They have to keep their voices down. His dad is still up in the adjoining room.

Butch acts like this is Tate's fault. Like he is the one sending sentimental messages in the middle of the night, then acting like the other boy doesn't matter in the morning. Like Tate is a piece of fucking trash to be discarded in the light of day.

"No," Butch puts his hands over his mouth. "I guess I didn't."

Tate doesn't say it, that he thought he and Butch were friends, or something approaching friends. That would mean admitting that he thinks about Butch when he's not standing in front of his fucking face. When he's not sitting on the edge of Tate's bed, leaning forward with his face in his hands.

"I don't know if we can be friends, Tate." Pulling his hands back into his lap, Butch says it like it's up to him and him alone. Like Tate's got no say in the matter.

Jumping, Tate throws himself at Butch, hands reaching for his throat. Butch doesn't fight him, though he grabs Tate’s wrists, holding on tight. Tate only chokes him for a few seconds, before he realizes what he's doing. His hands loosen, planting on either side of Butch’s head instead.

He's fucked, he's so fucked.

Butch is still holding Tate's wrists. His thumb stroking along the right one. The one without the pipboy to impede their contact.

Tate pulls his hand back, standing up. He can't be this close. He can't. And he's so full of, full of anger and sadness and frustration. But he's starting to realize he can't just wreck Butch when he gets angry. There are consequences. The thing inside him is still too tight, too much.

Tate throws himself against the opposite wall. Letting his limbs go loose on impact. He crumples to the floor. Not that he blacked out, but he feels empty. Alone. He can't hear Butch, but there's a thudding in his ears, a hollow sound.

When his eyes do open, Tate only dimly remembers having done anything at all. Butch sits next to him on the floor, his back against the wall and his legs stretched out in front of him. His hands are at his pipboy.

Tate’s pipboy lights up.

271257 > 130758: we cant be friends  
130758 > 271257: Fuck you.  
271257 > 130758: not my choice  
271257 > 130758: overseer

They sit together for awhile longer, listening as Tate’s dad goes about his evening. Tate can feel wet blood running from his nose, clinging to his lip. He does nothing to stop the flow. Eventually it'll stop on its own. When they're sure James is in bed, Butch gets up to leave. 

Before leaving, Butch offers Tate a hand up from the floor. Tate accepts it. When Butch wraps his arms around Tate, he freezes.

Tate only barely registers Butch saying that he's sorry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and kudos are always super super appreciated just like ahhhh. Okay. So even though FO4 comes out next week I should still be able to update, as I have a few more chapters in rough draft.


	8. Camouflage is a Stange Thing, Seperating the Prey from One Another

Tate sees Butch in the hall the next afternoon. He's got his arm draped over Christine Kendall’s shoulders, the tips of his fingers resting just millimeters from her breast, above where she’s pulled the zipper down real low. Butch’s thumb runs over the fabric of her vault suit like it did Tate’s wrist last night.

Amata finds Tate an hour later on the reactor level. His fists are bloody, wet. She takes the stim from Tate’s pocket, aiming the needle between each joint. Rationing out the chems, she pricks him six times, three on each hand. Tate watches as his knuckles stitch closed. They’ll scar. He’s got a bunch of scars on his hands and knees, but not anywhere else.

Shooting as if nothing has happened, Amata waits for Tate to speak first. As little or as much as he wants.

“I hate him.”

Amata pulls down the gun. “You've been saying that for years.”

“I've meant it for years.” He hangs his head between his knees.

Her hands work at filling back up the gun’s chamber even though it's only three-quarters empty. “I'm sure you have, Tate.”

“I don't need anyone but you.”

Amata sighs, tells Tate not to lie, it's unbecoming of him to do so.

\--

Wally asks Tate, point blank, if he's queer. Tate knows that word now, he didn't know it two years ago. But he found it in a book. It means ‘odd’ or ‘homosexual’ depending on context. Tate figures that he's both. 

“You asking for yourself? Or a friend? Because I gotta say, I'm not sure you're my type.” Tate wrinkles his nose.

Wally scoffs, “I seen how you look at Butch.”

Tate forces a laugh until it turns genuine. “Fuck, man, fuck,” Tate wipes away tears. “Me? Me? You and Paul and Freddie have been riding his dick since we were fourteen and you're saying I look at him funny? Naaah.” He drags out his denial.

With lit coals in his eyes, Wally steps towards Tate, fists raised. But it's no good. Wally ain't a fighter. Tate moves out of reach from his strike, sliding to one side. The display is so pathetic, Tate can't even be mad. He does kick Wally in the back of the knee as he leaves, sending Wally crumpling to the floor.

\--

271257 > 130758: i miss you  
130758 > 271257: I thought you weren't supposed to talk to me?  
271257 > 130758: when do i ever listen to the overseer  
130758 > 271257: When he said we couldn't be friends.

Tate stares at the exposed piping on his bedroom ceiling, the web of tubes that gives them air, water, life. Everything necessary for survival runs through metals and plastics as much as hope and expectation. If they burst, everyone's fucked.

271257 > 130758: come downstairs  
271257 > 130758: please

It's 2:34 in the morning. His dad will be asleep. James doesn't get the insomnia that Tate does. 

Getting his vault suit on is a hassle, but Tate doesn't have anything else, other than dress clothes. Fuck it. He pulls on his dark dress slacks and a singlet. He’s fucked enough anyway if he gets caught out this late. Pocketing his keycard, he slips out the door. James is nowhere to be seen.

Because the floors are slightly hollow on the residential levels, Tate can hear the movement of security easily, the way they make the ground shake with the stomping of their boots. As he descends, it gets harder to listen. Tate starts hearing the rumbling of the vault itself, shifting and settling in the earth. The vault is never really still, an entity in its own right. 

During the night cycles the overhead lights are low. But it's never dark here. Tate isn't sure what darkness looks like. Even their bedrooms have always-on emergencies, always bathing them in faint white.

With the reactor level door open, Tate slips inside. The overhead lamps are already on. Butch beat him here. Or someone did. He hasn't given up on the idea this is some sort of cruel joke. That Butch and his friends, his real friends, are all waiting for him at the foot of the stairs. That he’ll finally get that beating they've always threatened.

But it's just Butch and the smell of smoke. There's a coffee cup next to him he fills up with ash. It's white, pristine, new. Butch is always finding new things and Tate doesn't know how.

“I'm here,” Tate declares.

“I can see that.” 

Butch holds out his flask. It's full of beer so Tate drinks. When he's finished, he wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand. 

“What do you want, Butch?”

“To not give a fuck what the Overseer wants.”

“You don't.”

Butch laughs. It's bitter. Like unsweetened coffee straight from Butch’s ash cup. “Of course I don't.”

Tate doesn't know how to continue the conversation. It wasn't his to start with. Butch talks over a divide Tate can't see, something he's been told doesn't exist. And though he has this vapid, empty feeling, this sense of absence, he still can't see the contours, where the emptiness begins and where it ends. 

“I just gotta be more careful about seeing Amata and you is all. Her dad doesn't like it.”

Of course he doesn't.

Tate finishes off Butch's beer before he even stands a chance. Butch doesn't complain.

\--

Butch still comes down to the reactor level to shoot with Amata. They trade the gun between them. Sometimes she grabs the back of his shirt when he won't hand the gun back as quickly as he should, lingering over the smell that the gun makes right after it's fired. Warm, foreign. Eventually, Butch stops asking why Tate doesn't shoot. Apparently “don't wanna, don't like it, like fists better,” one of those statements, settles Butch’s curiosity. 

So Butch and Amata take turns shooting and Tate thinks they look happy together. They might even be good together, were they both different people. Because Amata, for all her light and warmth, is still her father’s daughter. She doesn't so much ask as command and it clearly grates on Butch’s nerves. And none of them know a lick about Butch’s father but Tate bets he's still his father’s son because upstairs Butch’s hands are still all over Christine Kendall. Had to get that from somewhere. Tate wonders where that leaves him. Because his father is a doctor, had a wife, and raised a son who can only ever imagine the happiness of his best friends and not his own.

\--

When Amata turns seventeen, her party is filled with adults, insincere laughter, and Tate. She entertains guests like a well-worn host. Her ruby colored dress floats around her like a dream, setting off the flush of her cheeks. Tate stands by her side for the first forty-five minutes, smiling at the jokes others make. He twines his hand in hers, squeezing when it gets to be too much. His hand sweats.

She tells Tate it's okay, he can sit down. Paul’s dad hands Tate a glass of wine with a wink. Amata already has a glass in her hand. She puts it to her lips, color staining the rim. Tate sets his wine down on the counter and forgets it exists.

Being in the diner at all makes Tate nervous. This steady march he's following towards adulthood. The panorama of the rest of his life etched across the faces of his elders. They smile, they chat, they make nice with liquor and pills and pretend like they don't live like boxed radroaches, just waiting for someone to tear off a limb. Tate tells himself he’ll learn to wear the costume too. In his dress slacks and white shirt, dancing to two-hundred year old songs on the jukebox, it's hard to act correctly right this second. Tomorrow, in his vault suit, it’ll be easier to remember his place.

“Dance with me at least,” Amata downs the last of her wine before setting the glass next to Tate’s full one. Tate doesn't know how long he’s been waiting for her, crowded into the corner of the booth. And he was doing so well earlier. Mary Kendall said he is charming. That Amata is lucky. 

Amata rests her head on his shoulder as they dance. Some of the adults take up positions as well, copying each other's gestures of intimacy. All Tate has are copies. But that's culture, right? An infinite regress of minor mistakes. Mistakes that perpetuate the cycle of vault life. The dead out, new babies in. A population kept stable. Each and every one of them has been accounted for, right? The Overseer has all the right numbers. One day, those numbers will be in Amata’s palm. 

Amata’s arms wrap around Tate’s neck, heavy with the weight of her responsibility. Everyone watches them. They always have. Tate tucks his head down, kisses her on the lips where everyone can see. 

\--

After the party finishes, Tate goes to Amata’s room, the Overseer conveniently delayed in his office. He hadn't come to his daughter’s party. 

For once, Tate tries reading to Amata. He sits on the floor, his back against Amata’s bed frame. It has been slow going getting through Faust. Tate wonders if after Werther, five hundred years ago, everyone else was as disappointed with Goethe as he has been. 

“Where is the heavenly joy in her arms? Let me warm myself with her charms! Do I not always feel her absent breath? Am I not the fugitive? The homeless one? The creature without aim or rest, A torrent in the rocks, still thundering down, Foaming eagerly into the abyss? And she beside it, with vague childlike mind, In a hut there, on a little Alpine field, So, her first homely life you’d find, Hidden there in that little world, And I, the god-forsaken, Was not great enough, To grasp the cliffs, and take them, And crush them into dust! I still must undermine her peaceful life!You, Hell, must have your sacrifice. Help, Devil, curtail the anxious moment brewing. What must be, let it be, and swiftly! Let her fate also fall on me, And she and I rush to ruin!” Tate shuts the book. He isn't interested in reading any more.

Amata, still in her dress, sprawls across her bed, leaving no space for him. Her curls fall off the side, almost in his face. 

“But you have such a beautiful voice, Tate,” she mocks. He could barely get through the passage. He's unaccustomed to reading aloud.

She sticks her hand in his blond hair, pinching it between her fingers and tugging. 

They wait until after midnight for Tate to leave, to make sure that her father sees him ‘sneaking out,’ of her bedroom. The Overseer gives Tate a smile. Fuck he hates this. He hates this so fucking much.

Walking the hall back to his quarters, a hand reaches out of a closet, pulling him inside and snapping the door shut. 

“Fuck you, Butch!”

Tate gets ready to swing, aiming at Butch’s chest rather than at his face. But the loud “oof! What the hell?” isn't Butch’s.

Tate looks up, up further than he would need to were it Butch pulling him into the closet. Instead, it's Stevie Mack.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Tate says incredulously. Because seriously. Is this a thing with everyone now? Fucking supply closets and secret meetings? Because Tate isn't sure he can handle the stress of it. Were it Butch, he'd be angry, yeah, but he’d calm down eventually. But he and Stevie barely talk. There's no explanation for their encounter. 

“Why did you punch me?”

“I don't know, because some disembodied hand pulled me into a damn storage room?”

Stevie grunts, maybe realizing that Tate, in fact, has a point. Tate turns on his pipboy light to illuminate the closet. 

“What do you want?” Tate would just as soon deck Stevie as he would anyone else who tried to fuck with him, but Stevie’s in his security uniform, baton on his hip. He was at the party earlier and there’s whiskey on his breath. His shift must have started after. There’s not much point to sobriety on duty anyway. But if Stevie is on duty, why is he in the fucking storage room?

“I heard...stuff about you.”

Tate rolls his eyes. “Yeah, we all hear stuff about everyone else. Can I go now?”

“Like, stuff from my brother. About you. About,” Stevie can't choke out what he wants to say. Tate’s not sure of the consequences of walking out on this conversation. Maybe he gets tossed in confinement. But maybe he comes out ahead too because he wasn't doing anything other than breaking curfew and the Overseer about high-fived him two minutes ago when he thought Tate had just banged his daughter, so.

Stevie grabs onto Tate’s shoulder, trying to pull him closer. Tate reacts at the touch, pulling away and back towards the door.

“I'm going to go, now.” Tate turns the handle. “And you're gonna let me before this gets any worse for you, okay, Stevie?”

There's this sort of haunted rejection in Stevie’s eyes that Tate can see even though the room is mostly just dim pipboy green. Tate would recognize it with his own eyes closed. If Tate shows any emotion in return, he’s fucked. Stevie is fortifying himself after this intoxicated slipping of his cobbled together survival. 

“Get out,” Stevie bites, but Tate is already halfway gone, his heart pounding in his chest. He bleeds from his nose onto his chin.

\--

Tate doesn't tell Amata what happened with Stevie; he doesn't tell Butch, or his father.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much to everyone who has commented/kudoed ahhhh just AHH the fact I can write for a seven year old game and people are still interested when the new one is right around the corner is just great. But thank you for your continued support of my garbage ideas.


	9. On to Bigger and Better Things that Look and Feel Exactly the Same

271257 > 130758: where have u been nosebleed  
130758 > 271257: Sick.  
271257 > 130758: like hell you are  
271257 > 130758: i aint seen u in weeks  
130758 > 271257: Sick.  
271257 > 130758: fuck you

His father doesn't make him go to class. Every morning Tate says he feels unwell. James asks him how, how does he feel unwell? Because he has no temperature, no visible ailment. Tate says his head hurts, his stomach is sick. He just wants to stay in bed. Just one more day.

And even though his father is the vault doctor, and can find nothing at all the matter, James lets Tate stay in bed. He goes back to sleep until noon. In the afternoon, he sits on the couch in their common room instead of going to class, reading from Faust silently. Even though the book sucks, Tate has nothing else to do. Sometimes Tate goes to his office after classes are finished, even though he didn't attend school. No one but Butch bothers to ask questions about him.

He's seen Amata a few times, but no one else. She comes by when her father tells her to visit. Sitting on Tate's desk, she reads silently from vault manuals. There are passages in the thick, soft-cover books she highlights, biting the pen between her teeth in between swipes. What the books contain, she doesn't tell Tate. Not that he's curious or anything. Not about the details. Well, maybe just in broad strokes.

“My father is lying,” she observes.

“Wow, I never would have guessed. He just seems quite the honest fellow.” Tate lets his eyes go sort of unfocused in front of the computer monitor.

Amata flips back a number of pages, looking for something she's already read. “I think the vault has been opened.”

Tate stills. “What do you mean?”

“What I said, Tate. I think the vault has been opened. More than once.” She shuts the book. “Let’s go.” Hopping down from the desk, she sticks out her hand for Tate to take.

“Where are we going...I don't really feel up to...anything?” It's true. He wants to go back to bed.

“To the door, I need to see something. Come on.”

Tate doesn't want to, but he takes Amata’s hand anyway. The door to his office clicks locked behind them. Walking the halls they are unaccosted, though technically they should both be in apprentice hours. No one is going to be bothered enough to stop them from moving freely. Tate keeps his hand in Amata’s, long after his palm grows sweaty.

As they pass the clinic, Monica Kendall rushes past them, her mouth open, screaming in joy. The littlest Hannon runs after her, equally loud and exuberant. Their voices ring off the walls. Someone will corner them, stop the racket, eventually.

The vault entrance is quiet, without a guard. Why bother? The door, twenty-four inches thick, maybe more, is all the sentry they need to keep them safe. Amata lets go of Tate’s hand. Standing under the arch of the giant circle, the cogs of the door frame her petite body, making her look less significant than she is. The vault is not hers to guide yet, but one day soon, it will be.

Amata presses her well-manicured hand flat to the center of the door, where it reads “101.” She covers up the “0” part way with her palm. The numeral is too big for her to obscure completely.

Tate thinks about the other 100 vaults. And the number he isn't sure of on the other side, 102, 103, 104, how far do the numbers stretch? How many underground-children like them are there?

“I need to, I need…” She moves her hand from the center of the door, walking around to the side. Her nails dig into the metal, trying to squeeze between the door and the frame. Tate hears one of her nails break off. She hisses in pain, shaking her hand when she's free again. To stem the bleeding, she grabs her finger in her other hand.

Tate has a stim in his pocket, but Amata says she's okay. It was a stupid mistake.

Next she goes to the panel. None of the lights are on. There are rows of buttons and switches. Tate doesn't know what any of them do. Amata seems to know. 

“My father will know if I power it up.” She sticks her bleeding finger into her mouth. Mumbling, “But see, here,” she taps a small, darkened display with her off-hand. “Here I could bring up the dates the door was opened and shut. All of them, for the last two-hundred years.”

That's a lot to invest in a little 2x4 inch display.

“Would your father care?” Tate asks.

Amata keeps stroking the panel. “I think it's the only thing he cares about.”

There's nothing more they can do today. Tate ends up sneaking back into the clinic to get bandages for Amata’s finger. She waits patiently while he wraps her in gauze, though he only half-knows what he is doing. Through the process, her mind is somewhere else, between the tissue-thin pages of her manuals, perhaps.

\--

Tate returns to class at the end of the week to take his semester exams. With the questions in front of him, his mind goes blank. He starts circling answers at random, making patterns with his pen. The answers he chooses makes the shape of a dick and balls. That'll do.

Butch tries to hiss at Tate to get his attention. So much for the three of them being subtle about their friendship. When Tate doesn't turn to face Butch, Butch whips a pen at Tate’s head. It falls harmlessly to the ground. Butch has wrapped a strip of paper around the barrel of the pen. Grabbing it from the floor, Tate looks at the message.

math: A, A, D, C, B, A, C, D, D

Answers. Fucking Butch DeLoria is either trying to help Tate cheat on his exam, or is trying to fuck the shit out of him even worse. Well, couldn't be worse since Tate’s answers are just random guesses anyway. But Butch’s answers could also be deliberately wrong, while random guessing would get Tate some points. There's one more line of text on the slip.

send bk lit for sci

That would mean actually trying. With resignation, Tate erases his carefully constructed dick, replaces the math section with Butch’s answers, and starts reading the assigned text for the literature section. He puts the words into Amata’s voice in his head so he doesn't get bored with it.

\--

To Tate's surprise, Amata tells Butch about her suspicion as well.

“Why though?” Butch questions, “why keep it a secret? Why not just let us fucking go?”

Amata bites her bottom lip. “I haven't put it all together yet. There's just so much here. I don't even know if my father has read it all.”

They're down on the reactor level, in the sort of bubble of privacy they've come to rely on. Here they are safe, though never untouched. The vault is in their veins. They can't sweat it out. Amata sits on the table, one of the manuals open in her lap, another two stacked at her side. Tate carried them down for her. He and Butch stand in front of her, waiting for answers she doesn't yet have. Butch leans the gun against his shoulder.

“What do we even do if we know, like,” Butch chooses his words carefully. “Does that mean we get to go outside? For real?” He sounds so hopeful. It takes Tate aback. As claustrophobic as the vault is, Tate has never considered the not-vault with any serious intention.

"Maybe," Amata traces her finger along the page to keep track of her place. "But we'd need proof that it's safe, right? We don't only need to know the vault has been opened, but that people came back."

"Do you think it's possible or not, doll?"

Tate hates it when Butch calls Amata ‘doll,’ ‘babe,’ any other little term of endearment. He collects them like scraps of paper, to look back at after he has been deemed irrelevant. As Butch becomes softer around Amata, kinder, Tate realizes just how quickly his fragile house falls apart.

“Yeah, I do. I do think it's possible.” Her eyes flick to Tate, then back to the manual. “See there are years here,” she points. Both Tate and Butch have to lean over her lap to see, but the text is upside down. With an exasperated sigh, she turns the book around so it faces them. Her nail keeps her place. “It's a numerical code right? And I think it refers to provisions for when and why the vault should be opened. But it needs a key. I need that key to know for certain.”

“And your dad would have the key?” Tate asks.

“I'm not sure. I know there is a door under his desk. And a safe behind a painting in his office. Another safe in his bedroom. So he may have the key. But I don't think he knows about this. About these instructions. He's not…”

“He ain't smart enough,” Butch interjects.

Amata doesn't say no, but she doesn't say yes, either.

“So we get into the safes. Easy,” Tate says it like he knows how to get past the locks. He doesn't. But like, how fucking hard could it be?

“I have another idea too,” Butch hands Tate the gun, but only so he can fish his cigarette pack from his pocket. “You two work on the safes,” he blows smoke away from both Tate and Amata, “I'll try something else.”

“Butch,” Amata warns. 

“Don't worry, I got this.” He says it with such finality Amata doesn't question him further. Though she does grab the gun before Butch has the chance to finish his cigarette. Once she's on the range, Butch turns to Tate and smiles.

\--

"I think Butch likes you." Tate's chin is planted on the very edge of his desk. Amata, for once, uses the other chair instead of perching herself on the desk itself. The desk is too cluttered with manuals. Where she keeps getting more, Tate has no idea.

"I don't think that's it, Tate." She scrunches her nose. In her lap is a little portable lockbox and half a dozen paperclips. Already broken clips are scattered across the floor. Neither one of them want to admit to Butch that they have never picked a lock before. Not with the way he breezes through sealed doors into otherwise restricted areas with his keypass. So instead of asking Butch, they pass the lockbox between them, busting paperclips on their way to ultimate victory. They hope.

Tate grunts, "he keeps calling you 'doll,' and he's always touching you." He doesn't mean to sound jealous. He doesn't! Amata deserves someone who wants her. He used to be able to reject Butch out of hand because he was certain he'd be terrible to her. Tate's not certain anymore that Butch would treat her poorly. Not with the little, considerate things he does when he thinks she's too distracted to notice. And if that's what Amata wants, Tate's sure she could have Butch. And Tate wouldn't stand in the way. He promises.

Amata laughs, snapping another paperclip in two. "He's doing that to get a rise out of you, Tate. He never does that when he and I are alone."

Tate hisses without realizing; Amata laughs at him again.

"See!" She exclaims. "You're practically boiling with rage."

"Amn't" Tate breaks the paperclip almost immediately. "Gimme another, that one didn't count."

She doesn't fight him on that, passing the clip without fuss. "You're jealous. Admit it."

"I'm not!" This time Tate admits defeat, handing the box back. "Why would I be jealous? If you like him, I dunno, you should try. He's not as bad as he used to be."

If by some fucking miracle, Amata gets the tumbler right this time. In triumph, she smashes the box onto Tate's desk and jumps up out of the chair, hands thrown above her head. They celebrate by splitting a warm beer Tate gets out of his desk drawer.

"And about Butch," Amata comes outta nowhere, "maybe you should try."

Tate rolls his eyes. "He's sleeping with Christine Kendall, I'm pretty sure. He likes girls."

"And the whole vault thinks we're sleeping together." She finishes the beer, drinking more than her share. "You, of all people, Tate Zhang, should not put faith in rumors."

\--

Tate sets his pipboy alarm for three am. He's sound asleep when it goes off. Groggy, he pulls on his dress slacks, not bothering with his cumbersome vault suit. They agreed not to wear shoes, too loud against the floor, so Tate slips out of his quarters in socked feet.

Tonight they're going to try the the safe in the Overseer's office. Amata at least found out the door under the desk is operated from the terminal. She doesn't want to risk pressing her keycard to it. It may work, it may not, in either case her father is likely to know. Just like he knows how frequently she and Tate go down to the reactor. When Tate asked about Butch, Amata shrugged, saying her father has never mentioned it.

Tate meets Amata in front of the Overseer's office. The door is propped open just a fraction.

"I set it so it wouldn't lock this afternoon," she grins at her own cleverness. "I'll go in and try the safe," they both cross into the room. "Stay by the door. Warn me if security is coming." 

Tate nods.

They're silent other than Amata's precision work with the lock. She fails the first attempt, cursing paperclips for all eternity. For real.

The Overseer's office is impressive as fuck, giant circular desk in the center of the room, old-world paintings along the walls, rows of filing cabinets. Tate has to admit, there's some semblance of pride that this is going to be Amata's one day. And that it won't be so bad for him to belong to Amata either. 

And maybe they'll get to go outside.

"Got it," Amata's voice is quiet, but she's practically trembling with excitement.

She's still rifling through the contents of the safe when Tate hears footsteps.

"Shit, I'll take care of this, okay?"

"Tate?"

"It's fine, I know what I'm doing."

Amata turns her attention back to the safe. The faster she finishes, the less time Tate has to stall security.

Stepping back into the hallway, Tate makes sure Amata's doorstop is still in place before stepping away and leaning against the opposite wall.

It's Stevie Mack, his footsteps heavy. His eyes get big when he sees Tate.

"What are you doing out? It's after curfew for you."

Tate's not gonna answer that question.

"I was hoping it would be you." Tate wrings his hands. He's not nervous, but he wants to look the part. "Listen, about before..." 

It's been months since Stevie pulled him into the closet. But Tate is certain Stevie remembers, even if he was a little drunk. Because Tate knows. He's five or so years younger than Stevie, but the time doesn't matter, he feels it already, the desperation.

Stevie raises one eyebrow. "What?"

"You ain't gonna tell anyone? Right?" He's just gotta leave out all the details, let Stevie set his own terms. This way, when Tate doesn't pay up, there are no threads of promises to hang Tate on.

If Amata chose Butch, would Tate choose this? Stevie Mack? He doesn't think so because every fiber of his body would still want Butch, he knows that much. Butch is this sublime object, always out of reach, standing on the precipice of a great drop, thousands of feet deeper than where they live now. 

But he might let Stevie fuck him anyway. If Amata and Butch...because then Tate wouldn't have to protect his reputation for her sake. And would it really matter, what face is attached to which cock? Tate swallows.

Stevie steps forward, his palm presses flat to Tate's chest, feeling at his heavy breaths. "Zhang."

When he was real little, Tate asked his dad if the Armstrong sisters, Beatrice, Mary Kendall, Gloria Mack, were his dad's sisters too? James laughed like the question was ridiculous. Why would Tate think that? Because they are the ones in the vault who look the most like Tate and his dad. But now, when Tate looks at Stevie, his hair shorn short and light colored eyes, he doesn't see it. Kids are supposed to look like their parents, right? How Tate looks like his dad?

Amata slips out behind Stevie's back. Once she's rounded the corner, Tate lets out a scared, strangled sound that startles Stevie. When Stevie takes a step back, Tate bolts, hoping Stevie will assume he's just a dumb kid who got scared by his own illicit desire.

He breaks for his own room. Tomorrow he'll ask Amata about the safe and he hopes she won't ask anything about Stevie Mack.


	10. The difference between your worst nightmare and hopeless dream

Amata doesn't find the key for the code in her manuals. Butch says he still needs more time. Tate doesn't have anything to contribute to this little project in either case.

Butch comes up behind Tate and boxes his ears while Amata shoots. They end up wrestling on the ground, dust getting into their vault suits, turning the blue to splotchy gray. No one ever comes down here to sweep. Tate doesn't try to punch Butch, but does keep him pinned to the floor longer than strictly necessary, his hands wrapped around Butch's wrists, their hips flush, bodies crammed together. When Tate feels Butch's breath on his neck he calls Butch a dickhead and climbs off.

\--

Butch doesn't have a party for his eighteenth. Parties are for kids and he ain't a kid. 

130758 > 271257: You sure protest not being a kid a whole lot. Makes me think you're a big baby.  
130758 > 271257: Honestly.

There's no response. But Tate doesn't get mad. It's Butch's own fault if he doesn't want Tate to wish him happy birthday. It's just past midnight on the 27th so he's pretty sure that Butch is still awake. Even if he isn't, the pipboy light can be bright enough to wake the fucking dead when it flashes on.

Still nothing.

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

And Tate starts to worry someone else will wish Butch happy birthday before he can. But not Butch's mom because it's past midnight and she's probably passed out in the living room. And. Nothing.

130758 > 271257: Happy birthday, asshole.  
271257 > 130758: sorry was busy  
271257 > 130758: thanks  
130758 > 271257: Busy with what, fuckface?

There's a long pause.

271257 > 130758: dont make me come over there nosebleed  
130758 > 271257: You don't have the balls.

Seven minutes later, Tate hears the lock to his bedroom door opening. Butch slips in, jumping onto Tate's bed and holding him down by the forearms, Butch’s hands are big enough they stretch almost all the way around. 

Fuck, fuck. Tate is hard so fast it hurts. And he's only in his boxers with the sheet over his lap and Butch’s solid weight and bright smile is fucking on top of him like the greatest wet dream Tate’s ever had except the one where he was in Butch's lap and they were pressed chest to chest and, fuck, fuck.

"Who has the balls now, Nosebleed?"

Butch smells like smoke, after shave, and a girl's floral perfume. Fuck.

"Who were you busy with?" Tate means it as a joke; on his tongue it's nothing but accusatory.

Butch's face drops. "Christine."

"Well," Tate turns his head to one side so that he doesn't have to look into Butch's eyes. "Don't let me keep you." At least his erection is flagging. But he can't imagine how Butch wouldn't have noticed. Tate's desire is this elephant stomping its big feet all around them all the fucking time. Breaking everything to pieces.

"I'm hurt. After you threatened me, now you don't even wanna bust my face in?" Butch sits back on his folded legs. "I'm wounded, deeply."

With mounting horror, Tate realizes he would take Butch like this too. With his lips and cock straight from a girl's body and onto Tate's. He'd be Butch's secret. Onto the list of impossible fantasies that fucking goes. Butch fucking his wife, coming to Tate in secret after, whispering pretty lies about how Tate is better, tighter, such a good fuck.

"Go, Butch. Get out before my dad catches you."

Butch listens this time, but he takes his sweet fucking time getting out. Just before Butch goes, Tate has to know one thing. 

"Was I first? To wish you happy birthday, I mean?"

"Yeah."

\--

Amata waits for an opportunity to get into her father’s bedroom undetected. She and Tate are curled up in her bed, on their sides, face to face, Tate’s back to the door. He's too tired to be read to, and class is out for two weeks for ‘winter.’ A long time ago, it would snow this time of year. Not always in D.C., though, the place that's supposed to be over top of them. But it would get cold and frozen water would fall from the sky, sometimes. There are photographs. Tate's not sure if he would like snow or not. And the vault is always cold. So he's not sure why they get two weeks off in the winter.

When they get back to class, it'll be their last semester. After that, Amata will have more to do for the supervisory track. Tate will have even less to do than he does already. Maybe he’ll get a sofa in his office, for chaplaining...sure. Then he can sleep during the day while Amata follows her father around. 

The Overseer knocks on Amata’s bedroom door.

“Is Tate in there with you?” he calls from the other side.

“Yes, Mr. Almodovar,” Tate responds.

“Okay, well, I just need to step out to the office for a bit. Behave yourselves.” Of course he doesn't mean that. And of course, they won't behave themselves. Just, they’ll misbehave in a way the Overseer doesn't expect.

They wait until after the door to the hallway clicks closed to get out of bed. Amata slides out the box where she keeps her screwdriver and paperclips. There are other things in there. A journal, little plastic toys from Amata’s childhood, a sketch of a woman. Tate doesn't ask about any of it. If Amata wants him to know, she would have already told him about it.

Shoving the box back under her bed, Amata’s hands are shaking. “Okay, let's do this.”

Tate is fairly sure Amata loves her father. That she thinks her dad is a good man, doing his best. But he's not infallible. And she knows this too. For so long he's been so set on keeping the vault door shut tight. And Tate thinks Amata’s got it right. They need to look into this now, before they too get settled, comfortable. Adults only ever want the easy way out. Him, and Amata, and Butch, they need to act now, before they inflict these same sins on their children.

Standing watch is sort of unnecessary, the only person who could catch them is Amata’s father. Still, Tate works up a feasible story about why they would be in his bedroom instead of Amata’s. None of the tales his concocts are particularly flattering, but they’ll shield Amata from blame. ‘Just, honest, looking for a little thrill, Mr. Almodovar, makes things...exciting. She kept saying she didn't wanna, not in your bed.’

She's faster with this lock, getting better at lock picking in general, Tate figures. Tate helps her by holding onto whatever she hands him so she can get to the back of the safe. A box of mentats, a pouch filled with dozens of rolled-up hundred dollar bills, two clips for a pistol. She pulls out a thick, sturdy, hard bound book from the safe. Flipping through the book faster than she could possibly read, Amata’s face lights up. “This is it, I think. Um, here.” She tucks the book under one arm and starts taking stuff back from Tate, just stuffing it in haphazardly. “See if you can find another book in the living room about the same size. Hurry.”

Once Amata frees up his arms, Tate goes into the living room. Amata and her dad have walls lined with books. He doubts her dad reads them. She might, though. More likely they were just stuck in here before the bombs fell, and none of the previous Overseers bothered to move them.

Tate runs his fingers along the bindings, looking for something similar to the book Amata grabbed. He finds a hardcover, not quite as thick, but the same sort of navy-colored cover. Close enough. If the Overseer scrutinizes it too much he’ll know in any case.

Amata’s head is still stuck in the safe, trying to arrange the other items like they were placed before. As if nothing were disturbed. Plucking the book from Tate’s hands, she must approve of the match. She gets up on her toes to reach towards the back, putting the decoy in.

“Okay, let's get out of here.”

Back in her room, Amata stows the pilfered book under her bed. They’ll check it against the other one later, downstairs. Before her father can get back, they crawl into bed together. Tate throws his arm around Amata’s waist and falls asleep. He dreams of lemons, real ones. Wonders how heavy they would be in his hand. How bright the color would be, looking at them in the flesh.

\--

“Butch got himself locked up,” Amata tosses her bag on the table with a thud. Tate’s beaten her downstairs. He's been experimenting with how early he can cut out of apprentice hours before he gets in trouble. Pretty soon he won't be going at all. Then, in May, when class is over forever, he’ll figure out if he has to show up to his job. Probably not. Probably.

“What?” 

Butch has been pretty, well, good, as of late. And since Butch has managed to not fuck with Tate, Tate hasn't fucked with Butch, and neither of them have gotten cell-tossed to calm the fuck down before being shipped back to their respective parent. 

“He just starting...punching Andy? I don't get it,” Amata explains.

Tate doesn't get it either. Better not to ask questions. Amata probably doesn't have answers in any case.

\--

“Hey, Tate,” Butch drapes one arm over Tate’s shoulders, his wrist hanging out over the edge. “I got something to show you.”

Tate’s fairly confused about what Butch wants now. Since turning eighteen, Butch doesn’t have to hide his smoking in supply closets anymore. He can just go to the rec level and smoke with the other ‘adults,’ though Tate wouldn’t call him that. He's not convinced they'll ever be anything but boys.

“What the fuck, Butch?” The arm around him isn’t more physical contact than Butch usually engages in. Not by a long shot. Butch is actually really grabby with Tate now, but only when they’re down on the reactor level. Just Tate and Butch and Amata and no one else. Normally he doesn’t like, touch Tate in front of other people. At least not like this.

“I have to show you, come on.” No deterring Butch, Tate trots along behind. He sticks his hands in the pockets of his suit, trying to look disinterested.

Butch winds them through the halls until they’re in front of a locked room. Tate has never seen anyone go in or come out of this door. That’s not so strange. There are lots of places like that in the vault. Sections that have been sealed off when whatever is inside outlives its usefulness, or breaks, or becomes dangerous. No one thinks much of them. But, of course, Butch does.

Sticking his keycard to the lock, Butch gets the door open. Tate is well past questioning how Butch gets into places he shouldn’t be. But Butch, particularly pleased with himself today, provides the answer. “I changed my security permissions last time they tossed me in the cell. Close enough to the terminal my pipboy could connect.”

So, that explains punching Andy. Butch got locked up on purpose.

Inside the closet is dark. The overheads don’t switch on and the emergencies have been cut. Butch turns on his pipboy light, Tate following suit. The door snaps shut behind Tate. Butch reaches around to seal the door again with his card.

From what Tate can make of the room, it’s not in that much disarray. There’s a single couch against one wall, covered in heavy cloth to keep the dust off. What looks like a short refrigerator sits in the furthest corner. There are terminals stacked on the floor in neat rows, five of them, then a sixth up on the table. The one on the table has been dusted clean, keyboard and all, and plugs into a strip on the floor. It’s some sort of alternate rec room. But it's so tiny. No bigger than one of the larger utility closets.

“I’ve been going through all these terminals looking for shit. For, you know, Amata’s thing.” Butch steps on the bar under the table, lighting it up. Huh, so there is power to the room. The emergencies flicker on. “There's beer in the fridge if you want it. Probably warm. I don't leave the power on all the time, too risky.”

The monitor takes a minute to warm up. Meanwhile, Tate pops the caps off of two beers. He doesn't know if he's supposed to sit down or what. The dust cover is still on the sofa. So he just stands there awkwardly, a room temperature beer in each hand. 

“Oh wait,” Butch pulls the cover off the couch, sending dust particles into the air. Tate coughs as he breathes them in.

Butch takes his beer and keeps fiddling with the terminal. On the desk there’s a half-full ashtray. Butch has been here a bunch of times, apparently.

“Cool, okay.” Butch grabs both his beer and the ashtray from the table. Flopping down next to Tate, he smiles. “This is gonna be wild, Nosebleed. Really.” Butch can just barely reach the keyboard if he leans forward. Pressing the space bar gets the screen moving. Butch leans back, watching for Tate’s reaction.

It's a video. Okay, but like, okay. It's a video of a woman, with light hair and light skin, cast in the greenish-monochrome of the terminal. Even though the colors aren't vivid, the image is sharp. She's got huge breasts and tiny shorts. Her lips curl, then her mouth opens, but there's no sound. The computer doesn't have speakers.

They watch in perpetual silence as she starts stripping, her shirt first, breasts spilling out of her too-small bra. Then her shorts next. She smiles, turns around to show her ass. It's soft, kinda flat.

Tate wonders in an abstract way if she's pretty. He thinks Amata is pretty. He’s got some idea why Butch puts his cock in Christine Kendall. But he doesn't know about this woman. She bends over, grabbing her ankles.

Next to him, Tate can hear the buzz of Butch pulling down his vault suit zipper.

This is literally Tate’s worst nightmare.

What the fuck. What the fuck is he supposed to do?

But, mercifully, Butch stops short of pulling out his cock. He just rips his arms out of the sleeves of his suit. Mumbling something about the room being hot. Tate didn't notice until just now. He thought it was cold but now he's second guessing himself because even though he's got less than zero interest in watching this girl shove a….is that a twirling baton? Into her vagina, he has a fuck of a lot of interest in Butch’s bare arms, that and the obvious bulge in Butch’s suit. But there sure as fuck is no tactical way to be like ‘so, fuckface, why don't I put my head in your lap?’

Instead, Tate stares straight ahead, watching this maybe pretty woman, ride some fake penis with her tits bouncing and her mouth silently screaming.

Fuck. He's so fucked.

“You don't like it?” Butch observes. 

Tate lies, but it's unconvincing. “No, I mean, yes, um, it's fine.” He's sweating through his suit.

“We could try another video? Next time? There are a bunch.” Butch leans forward, hitting space and pausing the video.

In a panic, Tate doesn't think his answer through. “Yeah, next time, a different one. Maybe.”

\--

“Amata,” Tate doesn't even know how to phrase this question. 

She already knows something is up. “What, Tate?”

Suddenly, telling Amata everything feels like a very bad idea. Like maybe she won't understand. Or it's breaking some sort of, he doesn't know, guy-trust with Butch. This is Butch trying to like, fucking bond with him or some shit over tits and vaginas and Tate doesn't know what to do with this information.

“You look pretty today.”

Amata narrows her eyes. “Fine then, don't tell me.” Turning on her heels, she marches to her father’s office.

Tate wipes his hand down the front of his face. Lamenting yet another secret he must keep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, we're finally getting somewhere...aren't we, in this perpetual game of 'just kiss already' we've skipped several steps, first and foremost, the kissing...
> 
> Anyway, comments and kudos very much appreciated! Hope you're having fun with FO4 if you're playing!


	11. Visions, haunted screens, other synonyms

With the time it takes to break the code in Amata’s manuals, she doesn't have time to read to Tate. She doesn't have time to shoot. She spreads out across the long table on the reactor level flipping open two, three, four books at a time. Butch shoots a little, but mostly he helps. Tate doesn't shoot at all. He only helps.

“Eighteen, six, three, twenty-four,” Amata reads off numbers like they already mean something to her. Tate jots them down in blue pen on the pad of paper Amata sticks into his hands. When she's finished reading numbers, she takes the paper from Tate and compares them against words in another book. She snatches the pen from Tate’s hand next, so she can make her own marks.

Butch works his way through his third cigarette. “I'm gonna look again tonight.”

“I'm sure you are, Butch,” Amata’s tone is terse.

“On the term-?” before Tate can finish his question, Butch’s fist tightens at his side. Tate is getting better and better at reading the mounting signs of aggression in others. Doesn't help him with himself, but it's a start. “In the locked rooms?”

“Yeah, nothing like swapping my keycard with security’s, eh?”

Butch wants to hide what he can do with computers, with robots, with his own fucking pipboy. It doesn't make any sense to Tate. Butch could be assigned a way better job than what he's got now, if they knew. Butch isn't an idiot. He's not. He's smart in a way Tate’s not, able to manipulate machines and numbers. 

Those test answers Butch gave him for the final? They were all correct when Tate got his exam back. When Butch got his exam back, they were marked wrong. He'd put down wrong answers on purpose.

“I think I'm going to be able to do this without whatever criminal activity you're engaging in, Butch,” Amata keeps her nose between the pages.

Draping his arm around Tate’s shoulders, Butch makes a last appeal. “Maybe I ain't got nothing cause you're monopolizing Nosebleed. He says he doesn't do anything, but he’s your lucky charm, doll.”

She tries to hide it, but Amata smiles. Butch’s fingers tug at the thick fabric of Tate’s suit, right where the zipper meets blue. 

“I'll take the kid out tonight.”

“Oh fuck off, Butch,” Tate pulls himself away.

\--

In the weeks since Butch jumped into his bed, pinned him down, smiled, and told Tate he was the first to wish him happy birthday, Tate’s fantasies have started from that point.

Butch still smells like Christine Kendall, floral scent stinging Tate’s nostrils like thorns. But that's part of the dream too. There's dried saliva on Butch’s lips, an edge of lipstick he didn't wipe clean. It's on Butch’s collar too.

But he whispers in Tate’s ear, “She wasn't enough.”

Butch would grab Tate’s hair in his fist, wrenching his head to one side and exposing his throat. Not to kiss, only to make vulnerable. But they would kiss, right? Somehow Tate finds that the more shameful part of the fantasy. Still clothed, wrapped around one another, Butch’s mouth open and wet against his own. Sharing breath as Tate tries to open Butch’s suit. Under the fabric, a woman’s scratches, thin red lines tracking where Butch was before, just before coming to Tate’s bed.

“She wasn't enough.”

Tate would rakes his short-cut nails over her marks. No, better, he’d flip Butch over, hit him until he bruised, dark and purple so the red can't show. Tate would wreck him then ask to be wrecked in return, order Butch to fuck him, like Butch fucks Christine. Spread his legs around Butch’s hips. Sink Butch’s cock inside him. Wait for Butch’s hands around his throat. Because Butch wouldn't come easily, would he? It would be a fight the whole way down. Scars of their tension blooming in vivid welts across their bodies, not ceasing where one’s skin ended and the next began, an unbroken canvas of violence and lust.

If Tate doesn't meet Butch in the hallway, he's sure to try and break into Tate’s bedroom again and he's not sure his heart (or his cock) could take the fucking stress of that.

He finishes, coming in his hand. Wiping away the cum, he wonders if his father thinks he finishes in Amata. If that's why there haven't been as many tissues in his waste bin as of late. Really, it's just he's not as hopped up. 

Butch might be able to smell it on him, the sweat and cum and desperation. But Butch is the fucker who almost whipped his dick out in the little closet-lounge while watching that girl shove a baton in her vagina. Tate still can't get used to that idea. He fucking hopes that's not what they're up to tonight.

Tate slips out of his room. If James hears, he says nothing. Butch isn't waiting, so Tate walks down the hall towards the DeLoria’s suite. He's only a few steps out when Butch slips through the door. His eyes are rimmed red, his suit unzipped. 

Butch pulls his arms through the sleeves of his vault suit. “Let's go, Nosebleed,” he wipes at his own nose.

There are half a dozen questions Tate could ask. None of them seem appropriate. “Are you gonna be a problem?”

Butch plays with his switchblade. “You're always a problem, Tate.”

He can't argue with that.

To Tate’s great relief, they don't head towards that weird room. Instead they head towards the rec level. It's not so late that everyone would be asleep. And Butch can be out as late as he wants. But Tate is technically breaking curfew. Were he at Amata’s side, he'd get away with it. But with Butch, Tate is more likely to be carted back to his dad.

“Where are we going?” Tate shoves his hands into the pockets of his suit. They're filled with Amata’s gum wrappers, two stims, and a screw that fell out of his desk earlier. Tate couldn't find where it is supposed to fit back in.

“Need a smoke.”

Tate rolls his eyes. “We can't go to the lounge, I'm not eighteen yet.”

“I didn't say we were going to the lounge, did I?” Butch makes a turn, keying through another door Tate hasn't noticed before. Just sort of blends into the wall, though he must have passed it hundreds, thousands of times. Butch holds the door open for Tate.

“Doesn't the Overseer or security or something see all your card activity?” Tate and Amata have been exceedingly careful to avoid using her card to get into suspicious rooms, though her permissions get broader with each passing week. Tate is pretty sure his are still narrowly defined. Though he other day he realized his card works on the Almodovar's suite.

Butch smiles, “gimme some credit. I fixed that long ago. Like the first thing I did.”

“Why?” This has been bothering Tate for so long. “Why if you know all this science shit, this computer shit, why don't you like, let Brotch know? Or anyone? You could work in robotics, or, I don't know. Shit. Something other than cutting people’s hair.”

The hall is a short one, with two doors. One left, one right. Butch doesn't reach for either lock.

“What's the point, Nosebleed? So I have some ‘prestigious’ job? Like you and your girl? Contribute to fucking society? Is that even what you want for yourselves? Everything down here is shit. I'd rather contribute to this fucking vault as little as humanly possible. So, nah, I don't wanna do anything but cut people’s hair.”

That shuts Tate up. He doesn't bother explaining that he's not contributing either. Or that helping Amata decode her manuals is their greatest contribution. Maybe the only one they’ll ever make. But it is the function of the young to question the taken-for-grantedness embedded in the old. 

Tate wonders if that's why Werther is wonderful, and Faust is shit. Debauchery isn't a bargain. It's a sacrifice. You have to give yourself over to it completely. Goethe knew that at twenty-four, but he forgot it later.

“Pick a door, Tate.” Butch holds his keypass up for Tate to see.

Tate doesn't think about his decision. He doesn't grab the keycard, but wraps Butch’s wrist in his hand instead, pulling Butch’s hand, card and all, to the lock of the left door. Butch doesn't act like that is at all weird.

“Let's see what we’ve won.”

The door slides open. There are a couple of sealed, wooden crates and a series of shelves lined with sundry other objects. Tate doesn't see any terminals, which is ostensibly Butch’s goal in searching these rooms. But Butch starts trying to pry open the crate with a screwdriver from his pocket. That's not gonna be enough leverage. When Tate points out the obvious, Butch scowls and asks if he brought his crowbar?

Tate looks over the shelves instead. There are some loose items: boxes of bobby pins, wonderglue, some weird electronics components. And a fucking crowbar. Tate snatches it up and stands behind Butch, who is still engrossed in trying to open the crate with his pitiful little screwdriver. Tate taps Butch on the back of the head with the crowbar. Not enough hurt.

“Watch the hair, Nosebleed,” Butch twists his head around, barely avoiding smacking himself with the crowbar. “Oh.” He grabs it from Tate, “thanks.”

Not wanting to point out that he’s the stronger of the two of them, Tate stuffs his hands back into his pockets. Besides, prying something open depends on leverage so the difference in strength doesn't mean much. Butch gets the crate open. The wood snaps under pressure when the nails get ripped out. Inside there's a bunch of white styrofoam packing peanuts that start flying as Butch digs through the crate. Tate takes the crowbar and starts on the next one.

“Well,” Butch comes up from the crate, stark white foam clinging in his black hair from static, “I wasn't wrong. There are monitors in this box.”

Tate has the second crate open, but he figures Butch knows better than him what they're searching for. So he pulls off the lid and waits for Butch to go diving into the box. Butch stands, leaving the crate of monitors behind.

Reaching up, Tate pulls the peanuts out of Butch’s hair.

It seems like the thing to do.

He half expects Butch to be mad.

“Thanks.” Butch leans over the second crate.

They're quiet while Butch checks out the contents of the crate. Tate shoves the scrap of foam from Butch’s hair into his pocket.

“Awesome. Fucking awesome.” Butch pulls a terminal out of the box. Setting it onto the floor, his smile couldn't be broader. “Grab one of the monitors. And see if there is an extension cable or something.” Butch gets back into the crate.

By the time Tate has the monitor out, Butch pulls two more terminals. 

“This might take awhile.” Butch sits on the floor, plugging in the first terminal to a power strip and the monitor into the terminal. He fishes around in his pocket. “Here, use my card to get into the other room. Let me know what’s there.”

Tate grunts, taking the card from Butch’s fingers. Right, he should make himself useful, not stare at the hunch of Butch’s shoulders as the workstation comes to life. Waiting around doing nothing gets them nowhere.

The other room is filled with smaller boxes, not crates. Tate can just knock the lids off of them. Each box is filled with a dozen or so identical toys. One with blonde haired dolls, one with brown. A box of toy cars. They've seen pictures of cars in their history books. Little teddy bears, then the bigger box in the room has bigger bears. It's all sort of eerie, being surrounded by so many glass eyes. There doesn't appear to be any sort of tech.

271257 > 130758: i got shit to show you 

Tate doesn't respond via pipboy. Leaving the boxes uncovered, he returns to the other room.

“What’s up?”

Butch sits cross-legged on the floor, a keyboard in his lap and a mouse sitting on his thigh. He's got his cigarette in one hand, letting ash drop onto the floor. The monitor flickers through a series of images on its own. Trees, snow, rain, stars, birds, horses, dogs. Tate knows them all from photographs in stained, peeling textbooks. Or blurry images on the standard, green-cast monitors. But this display is different. All the pictures are in vivid color. Stark, stunning. Tate has to catch his breath.

“Look,” Butch’s voice wavers. “This, this is outside.”

On the screen is the image of a cat with orange fur, its tail held up high and back arched.

“It doesn't look like that,” Tate corrects. “It's not beautiful like that anymore. The communists ruined the world.” That's what their history books tell them.

Butch isn't hearing it. “What if it's still beautiful, Tate?”

Tate shrugs. Because really, what then?

\--

Amata sees the pictures for herself the next night. Her brown eyes get wide and wet. Butch taps his ash off into a cup, rather than onto the floor. Tate wraps his arms around Amata’s waist from behind and rests his head on her shoulder to watch the pictures cycle around a second time. The images don't tell them anything about whether or not the vault has been opened.

“Oh,” Amata gasps, even though it's just the same fifty photographs over and over again. “I want to see. I want to see it for real.” Her shoulders shudder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and kudos always very much appreciated. Even if it's still the constant cries of "just kiss already!" I swear, I swear they do kiss eventually.


	12. Striking against the horizon as it falls down to meet the sea

Realizing that vault life is just a series of scenes, static, flood-lit stages on which Tate is meant to perform, he stops bringing his books to class. There's only about a month left of school before their mock graduation, so maybe Tate’s minor rebellion is not so courageous. But it brings him some small comfort to show up to Brotch’s class without his costume on. Without having to pretend he's learning anything. Tate still has to wear the scratchy vault suit, though, because he doesn't have any other clothes.

Skipping class entirely would be more rebellious, but the thought doesn't even occur to Tate until he catches Butch smoking outside the classroom door. While Butch can smoke all he wants now that he's eighteen, it's only supposed to be in designated areas. Watching him makes Tate feel very small. Not in comparison to Butch, but when Tate stacks himself up against the sublime of the surface he's only seen in photographs.

Butch is still a cliff, though, waiting for Tate to dive off the edge.

Tate doesn't say anything to Butch. They still don't speak very much in public. Butch’s terms. Makes Tate feel like his secret, though the same could be said of Amata. Tate considers other secrets worth sharing. But it's all still his active imagination, his terrible fixation.

As Tate crosses Butch’s path, Butch shoves Tate so hard he nearly loses his footing. About to ask ‘what the fuck?’ Tate is cut off when Butch decks him in the face. He should have been fast enough to dodge. But the surprise of Butch just smashing his fist into his jaw catches Tate unaware. They don't do this in public anymore.

Tate doesn't hesitate the third time. Butch raises his fist, screaming curses, his eyes half-closed, cigarette somewhere on the floor. This ain't a fair fight anymore because even though Tate is pissed as fuck, Butch is even further gone. Butch hasn't been casually smoking against the wall. He's been marinating in some anger Tate knows nothing about.

Or maybe Tate does know.

Before Butch can hit him again, Tate grabs his arm mid-throw. Tate wrenches Butch’s arm around to his back and knees him as hard as he can in the small of his back. It's not the best move, because it leaves Tate off balance. He only gets away with it because Butch isn't thinking straight; Tate only tries it because he's not thinking straight.

Together they crash into the opposite wall. Butch’s face smashes into the wall, breaking the impact before it can fully resonate through Tate. Tate feels the hit in his ribs, though. With that kind of force, Butch’s ribs must have broken.

“Fuck, fuck, FUCK!” Tate screeches.

“I fucking HATE YOU!” Butch’s words slur. His mouth is filling with blood. When he spits onto the floor, Butch’s saliva is thin, watery, and pink. “I hate you so much, Zhang!”

Butch twists in Tate’s grip, head butting him full force once he's turned around. Butch screams and screams, pain wracking his body. Tate stays silent, stunned by the violence he has grown accustomed to in himself, but has never seen from Butch. Not in such an abstract, primal iteration. Butch calls him, “Zhang,” not “Tate,” not “Nosebleed.” Tate barely recognizes that name as his own.

Blood streams into Tate’s eyes. He tries to blink it away. Butch’s headbutt split the skin on Tate’s forehead.

Recovering, Tate throws them both to the floor. Butch torques his body sharply enough that Tate lands with his back to the floor. His head hits metal, but it's the bounce back up and the second hit that puts stars in his eyes. How is this happening? Tate has always been a better fighter.

On top of Tate, Butch smells like smoke and the blood on his teeth. He doesn't try to cover it anymore.

Tate pulls his legs towards his chest, kicking out to dislodge Butch from on top. Reversing their positions, Tate straddles Butch at the waist, wraps his hands around Butch’s throat. He presses his thumbs deep into Butch’s windpipe, listening to him gurgle. Butch's hands wrap about Tate’s wrists, trying to pull them away. But Tate is too gone now, too fierce and lost. He doesn't stop.

Two sets of hands try to pull Tate off. They can't make him budge. Someone, female, screams for him to stop. It's not Amata. Tate doesn't know who it is. Butch’s eyes don't look right anymore. They don't look awake.

Tate blacks out.

\--

When he wakes to yellow-white light and antiseptic, Tate knows he's in the clinic. Not confinement.

“Dad?” His voice isn't loud.

His father doesn't respond.

“Butch?” Tate doesn't turn his head, too afraid to see a corpse on the cot next to him. 

There are pieces missing. Scraps of memory that Tate can't quite stitch back together. Some of the fibers unravel in his hands. He hasn't the strength to mend them again. Tate wants to sleep for days.

“Butch?”

This time, his father answers, “Security has him.”

Tate pushes himself up until he's sitting, rather than laying down. He has a bandage around his forehead where it split. A tube runs from the needle in his arm to the IV bag. He doesn't know how long he was out. But he's here and Butch isn't. Butch was more fucked up than him, wasn't he?

The sheet draped over Tate’s body does little for warmth. He's freezing, hairs on his arms standing up.

Or did Butch wake up? Fuck Tate up real bad after he blacked out? What happened in that time? He can't...he can't remember.

“Is he okay?” Tate realizes how sentimental he sounds too late.

“Don't worry about him, son. Your classmates saw everything. How he started it.” James smiles softly, coming over to the bedside and pushing Tate’s hair out of his eyes like he's still a child and not almost eighteen.

Tate bats his dad’s hand away. “But you, like treated him, right? I think...I think I broke his ribs. And his face. And fuck, fuck,” Tate covers his face with this hands. His hands shake of their own accord. “I need to tell him I'm sorry.”

“Tate, you should lie back down.” This time James doesn't try to comfort Tate, his voice is nothing but assertive.

Pulling the sheets from over his legs, Tate swings himself out of bed, his bare feet hitting the tile. He's oblivious to the fact he's only in a pair of boxers. It's not that he's delusional, exactly. He knows that his concern for Butch will appear odd to his father, who still thinks the two of them hate each other. And he knows that Butch started it, took the first swing. But he can't shake this feeling something is very, very wrong. This isn't like when Butch beat on the Mr. Handy so he could get celled on purpose. Fuck, Tate would have killed him.

“Lie back down, Tate.”

When Tate looks into his hands, they're filled with blond hairs he's torn out. 

Dry mouthed, he mumbles, “okay, okay,” and sits back down on the edge of the bed. When he stood, he felt suddenly dizzy. Even now, he feels like he might melt to the floor, a thick goop spreading out until it infects everything.

Tate sits, but he doesn't lie back down. James sighs and leaves him be. His only concern is that Tate stays put. That he not chase “the DeLoria boy.” James doesn't care to understand, only to treat. The less treatment, the better he is at being a father; the more, the better he is at being a doctor. Something like that. Tate doesn't give a fuck. He just needs to know why Butch hates him so.

Looking at his pipboy, Tate sees that only hours have passed, not days. That makes his stomach constrict even more. There is no way Butch is well enough, even pumped full of stims and med-x, to be out of the clinic.

130758 > 271257: Why do you hate me?

…  
…  
…

His father comes in, telling Tate he needs a stim. Tate doesn't know where. While he feels drowsy, floating, he doesn't feel pain anywhere. Not anymore. After the stim, shot into his pectoral muscle, he falls into a troubled sleep. The green glow of his pipboy wakes him up.

271257 > 130758: the vault isnt big enough for us both

Tate doesn't know how to interpret Butch’s response. But somehow he feels that the statement is true.

\--

“Forget about Butch,” Amata bites her bottom lip. Ever-present highlighted manuals sit in her lap. She's broken the code, worked out the instructions for opening the vault. She shares her findings with Tate only in bits and pieces. Maybe she doesn't think he's smart enough to understand. She may be right. “We can do this without him,” she huffs.

They graduate in a week. There won't be a party, anything like that. But each one of them will get a clap on the back, the adults will shake their hands. Welcome to being productive members of vault society. Tate is sure Amata will look lovely. She’ll say all the right things.

Her highlighter dries up mid-swipe. She tosses it across the room, landing perfectly into the trash bin. The plastic is loud against the metal can.

“So this says under what conditions the vault is to be opened. But it's all about...deformities in children. Certain things to look for. To know if the vault must accept people from the outside.”

Tate stands in front of her, waiting for her to look up. He's only trying to be helpful. “Do you see any signs?” Tate swallows. He doesn't want Amata to find ‘deformities’ in him. All of the kids look a little different from each other. So he's not sure what a deformity is, or what it isn't. He's almost eighteen and still a bit shorter than the other boys. Not a lot, but definitely shorter. Susie Mack is as tall as him. 

“Oh,” Amata looks up, her brown eyes wide, “no Tate. Not in you.” She reaches out with one hand to squeeze his arm. “Not in any of us. What I mean, the things they describe, they're...obvious. We would know.”

“So you don't think the vault has been opened?” Tate's not sure if he's angry or relieved. Was this all for nothing, or does it make him feel more secure that the outside will stay outside? Or did he think, despite his best efforts to not-think, that there is a world outside that isn't the endless show in which he never wanted to be an actor?

Amata squeezes his arm again. “Either that or they killed the babies.”

Tate knows immediately where this is going. “You need my dad’s records.”

Amata nods. “Please, Tate. You just need to look for children who don't exist.”

The rest of the hour Amata spends shooting. Tate does sit-ups and tries to think of how to find the password to his dad’s computer. He's not Butch, and now Butch is out of the picture. There have been no more furtive messages to Tate’s pipboy. Butch is still in the cell. Paul and Wally threaten Tate daily with repercussions, but Tate’s not afraid. They're too chicken-shit to try anything. And if they have a lick of sense between them, they'd know the two of them can't fight as well as one of Butch and one of Butch got destroyed. Tate destroyed him. Ribs, jaw, internal bleeding. 

That's when Tate will try to get into his dad’s files, while he's off giving Butch the stims he still needs. James has to go to security to administer them. The password to his terminal has to be written somewhere. Tate will find it. For Amata.

\--

Butch gets out of confinement tomorrow. At least, that's what Wally threatens. So it's gotta be today that Tate gets into his dad’s machine. 

They're letting Butch out so he can graduate with the rest of them. At least, that's the logic of it. Truth is, it's too much trouble to keep anyone locked up. And to punish Butch, really punish him, would throw Tate’s role in the fight into question as well. The Overseer just wants to smooth everything over. But no one can. The glass is already too broken, shards ground to dust. Butch will never forgive Tate. Fuck, Tate already aches for forgiveness, because he wants to feel Butch tug at his hair, he wants Butch to smile at Amata.

Tate waits until he sees James pass the open door of the chaplin’s office. Each day, Tate has timed how long it takes James to make it to security and back. He has a twelve minute window. He doesn't hide his walk over to the clinic. Doesn't have to. But once inside, Tate is careful about the drawers and shelves, making sure he doesn't make too much of a racket.

James wouldn't hide his password out in the open. Now, Tate’s not sure his dad would have to write down his password at all, it would be something he, and only he, could remember. While he shuffles through drawers, flips through books perched on the shelves, Tate tries to think of possibilities. He comes up with nothing in his hands, so it's gotta be somewhere in Tate’s brain. Four minutes.

The terminal is already on, but locked. Password options race across the screen in green text. Butch would know how to do this. But Butch is locked up. Butch rightfully hates him. Butch is as out of the picture as possible.

Tate closes his eyes and clicks. Because there's nothing in his stupid head to help him except that his mother’s name was Catherine. And before her name was ‘Zhang’ it was ‘White.’ And he's never heard a soul in the vault so much as mention her in passing. And there are no other Zhang's in the vault but him and his dad. There are no Whites at all. Wilkins and Wolfe but no White.

The terminal beeps. Tate doesn't know what he pressed, but he's in. Quickly as he can manage he navigates to birth records. His hands are shaking, three minutes. He scans the names for people he doesn't recognize. An extra Mack child, or if Brotch had a kid before his wife died quite suddenly. But nothing. There are no extra people.

He skips to the very end. For White or Zhang or some combination of the two.

There’s nothing.

Back to the top of the list. An entry for Almadovar, F. 21.08.2258. Tate clicks on the entry. Brown eyes. Six pounds, twelve ounces. Delivered by Dr. F. Armstrong, not Dr. J. Zhang. He backs out of the entry. Fuck. Fuck. DeLoria, M. 27.12.2257. Blue eyes. Seven pounds, eight ounces. Delivered by Dr. F. Armstrong.

One minute.

Where is he? Where is Zhang, M. 13.07.2258? Brown eyes. Where is Tate?

He can hear his father's footsteps approaching. Rather than run, he exits out of the terminal, leaving it at the password screen. Tate slumps down in his father’s chair, gripping on to the edge of the table, formulating his story so that he's ready. All he wants to do is scream at James. He came looking for broken babies, and found out that he doesn't exist.

“Tate?” James doesn't sound particularly surprised. Dropping his medical kit onto the desk, he doesn't even tell Tate to leave. “Are you alright?”

“I was just lonely is all. Amata is busy today. And no one comes to see me.”

James’ face softens. “I don't have much in the way of work today, either.” He looks around the clinic. “Let's just take the rest of the day off.”

Shucking his lab coat, James leaves it behind in the clinic. Dumbfounded, silent, Tate leads the way back to their shared suite. His father puts his hand on Tate’s shoulder as they walk. But they don't talk.

They spend the rest of the afternoon reading magazines they've read dozens of times before. Tate points out articles his dad already knows by heart. Things about vacationing in Hawaii and the newly built fortifications in Alaska. Absentmindedly, Tate says he wishes he could see the ocean for real. Something great, deep, and terrifying. Like, all the sea creatures were scary before. Giant squid and great white whales. They must have survived. Nothing, nothing could kill the sea.

James slips up, “it's true; it's beautiful.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and kudos always super appreciated. Also I'm running a fanfic/follower giveaway on my [tumblr](http://imperfectkreis.tumblr.com)


	13. This is Hell, but it Sure is Worth It

“There aren't any extra children, I mean, there aren't records of people I didn't recognize.” Tate hesitates, not knowing how much he should share with Amata, how she will react.

Her face falls. She tucks a strand of hair that has come loose from her ponytail back behind her ear. She's used heat to make it straight instead of curly. Even though they're alone on the reactor level, they keep their voices low. Neither has bothered to get the gun today. Tate pushes up his sleeves.

“There had to be something? Why are you so nervous?” But she's nervous too, wringing her hands, then putting her fingers on the tab of her zipper.

“I-” he's not sure how to explain. How does one define an absence, rather than a presence? “I looked at some of the records, my dad wasn't delivering babies around the time we were born. Someone named F. Armstrong was.”

“Well, that's not so odd. Felicia was Stanley’s wife, wasn't she? She must have been the vault doctor before your father...when she died, your father took over, is all.” But there is a waver in her voice. Tate can hear it.

“There aren't…” He's still not sure. “There isn't an entry for me, Amata.”

“Tate, what do you mean?”

“There's no record of my birth, so, like, what if the other damaged children just didn't have records? But they, they changed their mind about me?”

Wordlessly, Amata throws her arms around Tate’s shoulders, she holds him close, kissing the side of his face. “Tate, Tate, you're not broken, don't say that about yourself, you're not.”

He wants to believe her. He does. It is almost too easy to do so. Because Tate’s quick and he's strong. He's got all his fingers and toes. His eyes and ears and nose are all in the right place. So yeah, he's not broken on the outside. But even Amata can't see inside of him. How he's not put together quite right. And fuck, fuck, he's going to drag Amata down with him. Like he tries to drag Butch.

Tate runs his fingers along Amata’s arms. 

There are these spiraling thoughts in his head of non-existence. A flesh and blood child with no record in the computer. But that's just lines of text. Code, Butch would call it. Fuck, Butch might be able to fake a record for him, or make one disappear. There would be comfort in that, blaming his deletion on Butch. But Tate doesn't believe that for a second.

\--

Graduation is a simple thing. They gather in the rec room, students seated in folding chairs and their parents on the other side. Old adults watching the newly minted ones. Everyone is a vault citizen at ten, when they get their pipboy. Tate's wrist itches everyday from the bioseal. He wonders about that strip of flesh underneath that he'll never see again. Whether it turns rusty and hard. They're vault citizens at ten, but graduation is a remnant from the surface. They've seen ads in the magazines.

The students sit in a line at the front of the room, alphabetical by last name. Amata is first; Tate is last. In the alphabet there's a big gap between "M" and "Z" but there's no one between Wally and Tate. 

Leaning over, Wally points out that Tate is staring down the line. Tate slips away from the back of his chair, legs straight and his toes sticking up.

"Amata looks pretty," Tate mumbles. Really, Wally is right. Tate's trying to look at Butch. Hasn't seen him since they fought. 

Grunting, Wally isn't fooled. He can't fight Tate, but Butch can. "You'll be seeing plenty soon."

Tate shrugs.

They don't pay attention to what the Overseer says. Something about the future, the children, and himself. Tate plays with the gum wrappers in his pocket, trying to convince himself that he's real. When did he last see Amata chew gum? Yet his pockets are always cluttered.

Amata talks next, because she's got the best marks. Except Butch's could be better than hers in science and math, only he puts down the wrong answers on purpose.

Tate wants to scream what a sham this all is. Butch is pretending to be stupid. Amata is pretending to be a nice girl. Tate's pretending to be a person.

In his head, that sets off an avalanche. Student by student they would stand, confess for the true subject behind the marionette performance. Then they wouldn't have to cry over colored photos of a world that died long ago.

Instead of standing and shouting, Tate twitches. Wally's tapped him on the shoulder, it's his turn to get his diploma. Sliding to his feet, Tate stands. He has to walk across the row of other students to reach the Overseer. From the corner of his eye, he can see Butch’s long fingers rubbing against the legs of his vault suit. Just itching for something, maybe decking Tate in the face, right here in front of everyone. 

Maybe this would be the time Tate kisses him instead. Because the vault will never be big enough for the two of them. 

Overseer Almodovar hands Tate his worthless scrap of paper. Between his fingers, the sheet feels incredibly thick. The Overseer extends his hand to shake Tate's. On autopilot, Tate takes the hand, squeezes it back. Clapping Tate on the shoulder brings the proceedings to an end. The other residents don't even wait for Tate to take his seat again. The whole thing is over.

His father tells him congratulations. Amata breathes so heavily, her chest rising and falling, it must be with relief. Butch is already gone.

There's another party, a surprise no one expected, in the endless stream of vault celebrations. There won't be alcohol because not all of the graduates are eighteen yet and there will be parents so in the end no one goes at all. The diner sits empty, Andy cutting the cake for guests who don't arrive.

Tate and Amata spend the evening in her room, taking turns reading from Faust. They still haven't finished it. Tate keeps forgetting what has already happened.

“You’ll be okay, Tate,” Amata plays with his hair. She's changed out of her vault suit and into her nightclothes. Tate knows neither of their fathers will come looking for them tonight. He keeps his arm around her waist. Her socked feet press against his bare shins. Didn't bring anything to change into, so he lays in her bed in his singlet and boxers. 

He speaks from memory, “One might as well say, The fool, to die of a fever! why did he not wait till his strength was restored, till his blood became calm? all would then have gone well, and he would have been alive now.”

Amata keeps on spinning his bleached hair between her fingers. His roots have gotten long. “You’ll sweat your fever out, eventually. Everyone does.”

“Have you?”

“Everyone does, eventually.”

The two of them will always speak in garbled code. But it's not at all like the one at Tate’s wrist, coming through in rapid bursts from Butch, then falling silent for long stretches. Tate supposes that is over now. His pipboy won't light of its own accord. 

Tate kisses Amata’s forehead, waiting for her to fall asleep. When he's certain, he rolls onto his back, tapping at his pipboy dial. 

130758 > 271257: I hate you.

Butch is probably with Christine. Or Susie, or anyone, really. He could take his pick. And Butch isn't curled around his girl chastely, clothed, on the fuzzy edges of sleep. Sometimes, when Tate thinks about Butch fucking women, it makes him aroused. Now, with Amata pressed to his side, her hair spilling across his arm, it makes him sick to his stomach.

Tate doesn't mean to, the thought just slips in. Of Butch fucking Amata while he watches. Fuck. He has to stop.

271257 > 130758: stop.

\--

271257 > 130758: come to the room  
271257 > 130758: you know the one

It's the week before Tate’s eighteenth birthday. He hasn't heard from Butch in five weeks. Saw him in the hall, though. His face and neck now unmarked from Tate’s assault. The stims did their job just fine.

Tate rolls over in bed. He had been groggy, but not really sleeping. Just sort of in between. He rubs at his eyes with closed fists, trying to focus better on the pipboy screen. He can't fucking believe it.

130758 > 271257: What the fuck?  
271257 > 130758: just come nosebleed

The nickname makes Tate’s stomach twist. He's realized now that the insult is to keep some measure of affection out. Like, ‘Nosebleed’ is something Butch and Butch alone can hold onto. Not the phantom Tate who is sometimes so tired, sometimes can't sleep, and sometimes nearly kills the fuckface he's wanted to put his hands all over since he was ten.

Not bothering to reply, Tate grabs his shoes instead. Pants, he needs pants. By the emergency lighting and his pipboy he finds yesterday’s vault suit. He sticks his legs through the pants but doesn't bother with the arms, letting them hang loose. Pressing his ear to the door, he listens for his father. Reasonably assured that he can make it out, Tate slides open the door.

He doesn't remember exactly, exactly which door. Trying to retrace his steps from months before, Tate passes the rec room, rounds the corner. The right door is left slightly ajar. Tate slips inside.

Butch hasn't bothered to turn on the overheads, but the terminal is on. “Close the door.”

Mercifully, while the computer is turned on, Butch isn't watching anything. The door clicks closed behind Tate.

“Here,” Butch holds out a beer for Tate to take. “Sit down.”

Tate holds the beer but doesn't drink it. He stares straight ahead but doesn't see anything, his vision going blurry. Next to him, Butch smells like smoke, always does. And mint, he's brushed his teeth. Tate wants to scream at Butch to just hit him already. He fucking deserves it, right in the jaw.

“I found a new vid. Thought you would like it.” Butch’s voice is oddly monotone. Like he's reading the lines poorly from a script.

“Yeah,” Tate means, ‘no.’ “Let's watch it.” ‘I'd rather be dead.’

“Got speakers too. Gotta keep them low, though.” So, apparently, they're not here to talk, to figure out what it is between them that makes the vault so small, so dangerous. Butch clicks around on screen to pull up the right vid. Tate watches the way Butch’s weight shifts at his hips as he fiddles with the terminal.

The sound from the speakers is tinny, terrible. But there are a few notes of inoffensive music. Two voices. One is the woman. This one is smaller, more petite. Tate still doesn't know if she's pretty, but she's less exaggerated, with a trim waist under her oversized shirt. She smiles at the camera, pulls her shirt over her head.

“Thought this one would suit you better, maybe.” Butch doesn't look anywhere but straight ahead. He palms his cock through his suit, but he's not totally hard yet. Tate realizes he's supposed to be watching the screen, not Butch. He tries to sink into the couch cushions. They don't have enough give to let him disappear.

Someone, male, from behind the camera, sticks his fat fingers into the girl’s mouth. She smiles around them, bats her massive eyelashes. Bites down, licks. Tate has got to make something of this situation. Butch’s breathing next to him like a marching band.

The man from behind the camera comes in front. He’s tall and broad, with hairy legs and a big, exposed cock. His face isn't all that, but his body is, even if he's got more fat on his stomach than strictly necessary. Tate sort of likes it. And he likes how easily he picks up the woman, tossing her on the bed and wrenching her legs apart. The man on screen says he's gonna fuck her good, until she screams his name. 

Tate's never gonna admit he likes this vid more. Like it would be fucking admitting defeat in the wake of Butch’s perception. Finding a middle ground even though Tate hasn't told Butch directly. Could Butch tell on his own?

With his eyes shut, Tate feels out the word in his mind, because he's still not ready to tell Butch with his tongue. Queer.

The woman on screen moans, says she's a good slut. She wants to get fucked. The man says she'd better bounce on his cock. Tate opens his eyes.

Next to him Butch moves. Tate can hear the zipper of Butch’s vault suit. He doesn't look. He watches the cock plunge in and out of the woman. They're framed now so he can't see their faces. Just her tits bouncing with exertion and his dick in her cunt. 

“You like that don't you?”

Even through the distortion of the speakers, Tate likes the voice. Likes Butch’s groan better. And fuck, fuck he’s hard. But he doesn't know. He doesn't know how far this is going to go. What the fuck Butch thinks is going on. Is this normal? Does he do this with Wally and Freddie and Paul? Maybe the four of them sit on this cramped couch together, touching their cocks and watching women who died in the blast get fucked.

This is fucked.

Before he can start thinking crazy things, like Butch kneeling between his legs, sucking down his cock, Tate reaches into the waistband of his suit. Before he can think of himself on his hands and knees, Butch fucking him from behind while the other boys call him disgusting names, because they always knew, even before Butch did. He's gotta get off before he does more than think, before he actually reaches out to touch.

Tate wraps his hand around his cock. As long as he only looks straight ahead, there’s no issue. Butch is doing the same next to him. Tate can hear the sound of skin on skin as Butch touches himself. They're not going to talk about this. Tate ends up looking at nothing, but trying to divide his ears between, “Yes, I'm your dirty little whore, fuck me,” and the way Butch’s breath hitches when he gets close.

“Fuck,” that's Butch, not the vid. Tate stops moving altogether while Butch comes. The whole scene is too visceral, too close, even if he's not looking. If Tate comes from the sound of Butch falling apart, he's pretty sure his life is fucked forever. But now it's too late because he knows the needy, deep sort of grunt Butch can't suppress. There aren't any words there, mingled in between the pleasured noises, shifting to those of relief. At least, Tate can't fit the syllables into any words that he knows. He wants the vid to shut the fuck up.

Tate strokes himself again, three times in quick succession, and comes in his cupped hand at the end. He wants to die. Because when he shifts his head, Butch is looking. Then he looks away, leaning over the armrest of the couch and pulling out a box of tissues. Butch dumps the box between their bodies but still doesn't talk. Doesn't acknowledge what is going on.

Wiping his fingers, Tate figures he's got to say something.

“Yeah. I suppose this vid is better.”

Butch leans forward to turn it off.

\--

Only children have birthday parties, so when Tate turns eighteen it's over beers on the reactor level with Amata. He shoots a little, but he's still shit. Amata doesn't even bother with correcting his errors anymore. Something new that he's doing wrong will just crop up.

They've given up, for the time being, on trying to figure out the door. If it's ever been opened. If mangled children were never entered into the computer, their best chance at knowing of the conditions were fulfilled is gone. Dried up. There's still the panel at the entrance. But Amata is certain her father would know the second she powers up the station. 

Tate almost suggests that Butch could do it, figure out how to get the panel and display on without ever alerting the Overseer. But Amata doesn't even know that Butch and Tate are talking.

Well, more accurately, Butch and Tate aren't talking. Butch sends him messages in the middle of the night, on that first night and two more times this week, to come to the room. They watch videos of men fucking women and touch themselves. Sometimes Butch asks Tate, “that was good, right?” As he's zipping up his suit.

Yeah, Butch, it was good.

“I got you a present,” Amata says in between precisely placed shots. Her birthday is still a month off. Tate has been trying to figure out what to get her. He wants to give her a gun. Like a 10mm. Something stronger than the BB gun that's still light enough for her to hold easily. But while he knows the vault is full of guns, he's not sure yet how to swipe one from security. Maybe, if he asks, Butch will help him.

“What is it?” It's probably a book. Tate hopes it's not Goethe. Faust was terrible and Tate’s glad it's over. 

Amata puts down the gun on the table and rifles through her pack instead, pulling out a small, dark box. Not a book, then. Fitting the box into Tate’s palm, she goes back to shooting before he can even open the gift. Inside is an old world quarter. He's not sure the gift makes sense. There's a dead man on one side and a eagle on the other. Eagles were some sort of symbol of “the United States,” that place that used to be upstairs. It might still be, for all they know.

He turns the coin over and over in his fingers, still trying to understand. There's something precious there, but he can't make sense of it. 

Amata supplies the answer to the question he hasn't asked. “I found it. It's new.”

And that's enough of their short-hand for Tate to understand. Currency never put into circulation, locked down here with their ancestors for a future that never came to pass. One where they went back upstairs and rejoined the world where every day could be different. That promise that was never fulfilled. But that's why the coin came to live in the vault, because one day, they were supposed to join the surface. This coin that maybe never saw the sun, trapped instead in a box as it traveled to the vault, like their ancestors did. Tate and Amata, Butch, everyone. They're like this coin but they're not. They're sealed up, they're new.

Tate puts the quarter back into the box. He doesn't want to touch it too much, scratch it up. When they're finished shooting, he locks the new coin in with the old, busted up gun. The gun needs repairs, so Tate will need to swipe the parts from somewhere. That's easier than lifting a whole gun, because Stanley isn't the most organized guy. 

Tate tries kissing Amata on the lips, instead of the cheek, the forehead, the bridge of her nose. It's the first time he's done so since she turned seventeen. But back then everyone was watching them. It was for the performance, and they both knew that. This time, he tries to really kiss her. Like how he thinks about kissing Butch. Open-mouthed and wet. But it doesn't fit Amata. It's not fair to her. She parts her lips, she does, and kisses back, though they both know better.

When Tate pulls back he mumbles that he's sorry. He shouldn't have forced himself on her. Amata’s cheeks are flushed, her lips moist. She licks them.

“Don't do this, Tate, not on my account.” But she likes it. Tate knows she does. And he feels like fucking trash because of it.

Tate can't meet her eyes, not now. “Go on up, to dinner. I'll be there in a sec.”

Amata doesn't fight him, grabbing her pack before heading back upstairs. Tate waits until he hears the door click closed to scream into his hand. Again and again until he is hoarse. When he's finished, he wipes the tears of exertion away from his eyes. There's no mirror downstairs, but he already knows that they're red. When he wipes at his nose, his hand comes away bloody. Fuck.

Tate sits with his back to the wall. He can make this life work, he knows he can. It's just the details of it have got to get sorted. 

When he finally makes it to dinner, Amata is nearly finished eating. Freddie is sitting next to her, alternating between bites of his mashed potatoes and talking to Amata about his assignment as Jukebox repairman. But the jukeboxes are shit, with all the same songs. No fixing that. Tate questions why Freddie is there. But his conversation with Amata is innocuous enough. Freddie explains himself, “this is where people come when they don't like their friends.”

Tate can't even argue with that.

Across the diner, Butch looks back at their table. But Tate’s got no idea who Butch is actually looking at.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WELCOME TO HELL WELCOME TO HELL.
> 
> Comments and kudos much appreciated.
> 
> [tumblr](http://imperfectkreis.tumblr.com)


	14. Demise

There’s no preamble to it now. Butch sometimes sends a message:

271257 > 130758: come

And Tate, as if in a dream, listens.

But then Tate tries it the other way around. Instead of waiting for Butch to send a message, he pulls on a fresh vault suit instead of yesterday’s, sticking his arms into the sleeves and zipping all the way up until the tab almost touches his chin. Tate takes the time to lace up his boots properly, tie them off in neat bows. He tucks his pant legs inside the boots. 

On his way to the room Tate keeps his hands in his pockets so he can wick away the sweat. Too late he realizes that his keycard probably won’t work on the door. Butch has always left the door open for him, a fraction of an inch, but it’s there. Otherwise, he doesn’t know how to get in. But Tate’s resolve is there. Standing in front of the closet door, he presses his key to the pad. It rings back INACCESSIBLE. Fuck.

Wiping his hands against his pant legs, Tate devises another plan. Fuck, he wanted to be sitting, sprawled out on the couch, waiting for Butch to come to him. For one fucking time, he wanted to dictate, even if they still couldn’t quite talk.

Instead of leaving, Tate sends out a message.

130758 > 271257: Come.

And, so, Tate waits. He listens for footsteps coming down the hall, running dozens of scenarios, what he would say to each and every vault resident that he could have encountered. What he would say to Officer Gomez or the Overseer or his dad or Stevie Mack. Fuck. Stevie Mack. Shit. He’s so caught up in possible deceits that he could weave that he forgets entirely that he’s eighteen and there’s no curfew anymore. So while being out this late is strange, it’s no longer forbidden. 

The footsteps come. Tate waits to see who they belong to. He lets out ten breaths worth of air when it’s Butch. Leaning against the wall Tate hopes he looks like this is what he intended all along.

And it sort of is, because Butch looks frazzled and rumpled, his shirt wrinkled and his hair soft and unstyled. Because Butch’s eyes are light, they show his drowsiness. 

“What do you want, Nosebleed?” but Butch clearly knows because he’s already keying the door open for them. Between yawns, his hand brushes against Tate’s side to direct him into the room.

He came. Tate called and Butch came. This changes everything.

They still don’t talk, but they don’t open beers either. Tate sits on the couch, unzipping to his navel and then stopping. Butch waits for the terminal to turn on. 

“Which one do you want?”

Tate at least stops short of saying, ‘you.’ “Doesn’t matter.”

Butch shrugs and turns back around, scrolling through the folder. By what criteria he selects the vid, Tate doesn’t know. Doesn’t care. He’s not going to watch it, really, he’ll listen, though. He’ll listen and put the wretched words into other voices. Maybe, once the fucking starts, he’ll look at the guy’s cock so he doesn’t look at Butch’s.

Plopping down next to Tate, Butch sits closer than he normally does. Close enough that Tate can feel Butch’s arm graze against Tate’s when he unzips his jeans. 

Tate has no idea what’s going on in the vid other than the chant of “take it, take it.” But even that falls away when Butch’s arm stops moving and he pants out “fuck.” Tate’s still not out of his suit but his cock is hard and he wants. He wants.

“Tate?” Butch sounds concerned instead of angry. Like maybe this time they’ll talk. When Tate doesn’t reply, Butch just settles back against the cushion, still waiting on Tate to touch himself, or something.

He finishes unzipping his suit, grabs his cock and strokes. Butch watches him. Tate doesn’t have to watch Butch to know that he’s looking. Like this, with his feet planted apart on the metal floor and a soft-haired, cloudy-eyed Butch watching him, Tate comes easily. He doesn’t have to make up a scenario that will never come to pass. He doesn’t have to make himself into another person. As messed up as Tate is, as broken, forgetting his lines and where the boundaries of the stage exist, having Butch watch him is sort of beautiful.

They still don’t talk. Butch leaves the box of tissues in between them, putting in more space than there was before. When Tate can finally look at Butch, he’s not looking back anymore. Butch’s ears are red, though. 

Butch stops the video. They sit together in the too-bright wash of the emergency lighting. What emergency, though? And why must it always be so bright? Tate wants to fall into an endless darkness where he and Butch can’t see what they’re doing. Because maybe then they’ll stop being shit to each other. Maybe then they can be kind. Maybe not, though. Because maybe, in the dark, they would just lose sight of one another, never find their way back home.

\--

When Beatrice Armstrong comes to the chaplain's door, Tate’s got nothing to say. He still has no idea what the fuck he’s doing at his job, though he spends about six hours a day now pretending like he’s got a function. Like he isn’t an extra body in the vault. He can’t shake the idea now that he doesn’t belong. He wasn’t accounted for.

“Oh! I didn’t realize this was your office,” Beatrice exclaims. She runs her fingers along the door frame. Tate’s door is just like all the others. 

“Yeah?” Tate really doesn’t have more to contribute than that. Doesn’t want to ask her if she needs help because, fuck, what would he even do if she said yes? But she must be looking for something, or someone. Otherwise she wouldn’t be here, right? “Are you looking for someone?”

“No, I don’t suppose I am,” her voice is incessantly cheerful. Beatrice never married, though her sisters did. Tate wonders about that. But her next sentence betrays any line of thought that Tate may have traced to its conclusion. “Have you seen Edwin?”

“No,” Tate turns back to his terminal, scrolling through the same files again. At least he can look busy. He’s got a question though. For her. “Your mom was vault doctor?”

Beatrice’s face lights up, “oh, yes! Until your father arrived. She was very clever. And wonderful with patients.”

Tate laughs because his father is terrible with patients. Like he’s always trying too hard to be perfect, and forgets to be kind. Tate doesn’t know how to be nice either, so, there’s that. 

“There he is!” She must have caught sight of Mr. Brotch, because she leaves without saying goodbye.

Going back to his screen, Tate wonders if Mrs. Armstrong was there when his mother died. There are no photos of her, at least as far as Tate’s seen. She's a name, CATHERINE, that he could pin to the wall, scrutinize. Maybe she could tell Tate something about himself, something he can't see when he looks at his father, seeing only the same features of his face reflected back.

Tate gives up on the monitor, scratching doodles into paper with his pen. They all look terrible. He tries writing poetry next, because he thinks he could do better than Faust. But maybe that's unfair because he knows that Faust was written in German and then translated into English, so it must have lost something. The same could be said of Werther, but either it was sublime the first time around, or the English turn of phrase adds something.

I know this girl/she is beautiful, bright, and alive/I hope one day she'll scream/that she's fallen in love/with a boy who isn't me.

\--

“There's no choice,” Amata paces the floor of her room. Her bed is unmade, her hair a mess around her shoulders, having come loose from her ponytail some time ago. Tate puts his hands on each of her shoulders to try and steady her.

“I’ll do it,” Tate asserts. “We’ll use my keycard. You won't touch anything.”

Amata hisses back, “No, Tate,” she wretches free from Tate’s grip. “We will get caught. I don't doubt that for a second. But my father will be lenient with me.”

“How lenient?” Tate starts to get angry with her. This back and forth of wanting to defy her father, then turning tail and running away. He knows he can do this, he can take the fall too. Not so much to protect her, but because she won't go through with it at the last second. And he won't waver. “You know him, Amata, you know being his daughter will only carry you so far.”

“And what's the alternative? That you do it? That’ll ruin everything.”

They shouldn't even be talking here, in her room, where her father surely monitors them. Recently, Tate has started to get nervous. Like somehow the Overseer has caught on that Tate isn't actually having sex with his daughter. That might be as grievous an offense as opening the vault door.

“What will it ruin, Amata?” Tate tries to be soft. Because this is Amata, his best friend, who asks so little of him in return for the great volume she gives back.

She balls her hands into fists. Maybe for once in her life, she's actually going to hit Tate, after years of watching Tate hit shit. “Our life, Tate.”

“And it's better if you do it? That you risk yourself?”

“We can't do nothing.” She sounds like a petulant child. It doesn't suit her.

Of course they can do nothing. Nothing is the status quo. The vault has had two-hundred years of nothing. There may be two hundred more.

Tate pulls Amata close, pressing the side of his face into her hair. Maybe she wants him to kiss her again, but Tate promised himself he wouldn't. Kissing her is an act of manipulation, not of his love for her, as vast as it is.

“I'll do it, trust me.” 

Amata relaxes in Tate’s arms, though he's not sure it's warranted.

\--

Tate doesn't wait for the middle of the night, though he does depart for the entrance in the evening, just after dinner. Through years of experience, he's realized the vault is not as densely populated as he thought as a child, when it felt like there was no room to breathe. Now Tate knows hallways are often empty, that he can walk for long stretches while seeing no one at all. That doesn't mean his mission is safe, exactly, only that he may go for a walk undisturbed.

As he walks, he replays Amata’s instructions in his mind. The red button to turn the console on, the toggle buttons to scroll through the display, not to flip the giant lever, under any circumstances. She offered to draw him a diagram, but Tate is fairly sure he's got this. Red button, toggle switches, read the dates, don't touch the lever.

The door isn't guarded because there's no need. They're locked in by ideology, not by steel. At first, Tate stares at the massive round door in awe. The definition of sublime. The vastness of what lays beyond the door nearly brings Tate to tears. An expanse he may never see directly, only through photographs may he know its contours.

Standing in front of the console, Tate looks for all three things he needs before touching any of them. Red button, toggle switch, display. He puts his fingers at the edge of the panel, millimeters away from the buttons. Now is the time. Tate already used his keycard to get this far, there's no question now of who would have activated the door. He won't be able to feign innocence. There's a record. There's always a record.

With his hand already on the button, Tate hears footsteps approaching. He snatches his hand away, stepping back from the console. Fuck, fuck, he's shaking and he can't stop. Think of an excuse, think of an excuse.

“Zhang?” Stevie lowers his gun when Tate runs towards him. Shock, maybe, because Stevie would be just as likely to shoot. 

Tate throws his arms around Stevie’s shoulders, pressing his face to the security officer’s chest. That's got Stevie off balance enough that Tate can figure out the next step. Fuck. Stevie’s hand, the one that's not holding the 10mm, threads through the back of Tate’s hair. Shit.

“Zhang?” Softer this time, melancholy. And Tate knows full well it's easy to treat Stevie like shit because he doesn't give a fuck about Stevie Mack. He doesn't. Stevie is just another poor sucker like Tate. If anything, Tate only really wonders who it is Stevie wanted in the first place. What little baby belongs to the man he couldn't have, the man sleeping thirty feet away tucked into bed with his wife, who Stevie can never touch. So he tries to touch Tate instead.

Could Tate kiss him? What would that mean? Nothing, in the long run. Stevie has a cock, sure, and he's not the ugliest guy in the vault. And Tate can feel through Stevie’s fingers, the way they graze the back of Tate’s neck, that he wants Tate. Kissing Stevie could give them access, to security records, to that 10mm Stevie’s still holding in his other hand. It would mean Tate could stop meeting Butch in cramped closets where they don't touch each other.

But Tate remembers that Butch watches. 

He can't do it, because Butch comes when Tate calls; Butch watches Tate as he comes messily in his hand.

Tate lets out a strangled gasp, clutching Stevie’s shirt, then runs from the vault entrance. Once he's rounded the corner, Tate lets his face drop neutral again. He feels like shit for using the same conceit twice. Eventually, it'll stop working.

He tells Amata that he got caught before he could turn on the door, but that's okay. He’ll try again. Amata purses her lips and says they should give it a few weeks, at least. Security will know something is up if Tate keeps wandering to the vault entrance. No one does that without reason. 

Amata aims the gun, firing three shots in quick succession. The hour is too late to be shooting, but she does so anyway. Her curls bounce when the gun fires, even though there's virtually no recoil. Not much time until her birthday and Tate still hasn't figured out how to get her that 10mm. It would be a real surprise though. He can already imagine her face.

“Maybe I should go,” she lowers the gun. “Since you've already tried.”

“I can do this, Amata. I promise.” He takes the gun from her, trying a couple of shots. At least this time, he hits the paper around the target.

\--

In the end, Tate doesn’t manage to swipe the gun. He gets into security okay, knowing no one is currently in the containment cell because it’s only been a couple of hours since he last passed Butch in the halls. Watching the coming and going of the officers, he plots his open window of time for sneaking in, grabbing the gun, and getting out. The whole process leads to his hands shaking and sweat running down his neck. Fighting is one thing, he always gets caught fighting. Always gets away with it too. But this stealing shit? This is kind of new. At the same time, it’s sort of exciting. Maybe only because it’s new.

Tate slips through the door, it’s not set to lock which is great, really fucking convenient, actually. But then there’s the problem that it doesn’t matter how many times he’s been dragged to security, his dad was always there to yank him back out quickly. Tate’s never had time to appraise the lockers and shelves and knapsacks that are all over the place. He doesn’t know where anything is.

Checking one of the lockers, it’s shut with a combination he doesn’t know. Even if he’d brought bobby pins, the amount of time he’s got doesn’t leave room for error. He could smash the lock in, but that would be noisy and security would be suspicious when they got back. Trying a drawer next, it’s just filled with printouts, packs of gum, and a toy car with a wheel broken off. Just as to not leave empty handed, he takes the gum, petty thing.

In the next drawer Tate finds two clips for the 10mm, but no gun. He’s running out of fucking time so he takes the clips, shoving them into the pockets of his vault suit. They stick out funny, so he unzips his suit to stick them inside instead. 

He gets out without being caught, shuffling down the hall like nothing at all weird has happened. Only when Tate is back in his office, door closed even though he’s in the habit of leaving it open, does he breathe easier. He takes the clips from inside his suit and tosses them in his desk drawer. No one cares enough to go through his shit. At least not between this afternoon and tomorrow. Still, he wishes he had gotten hold of the gun, rather than just ammunition. But maybe there’s a metaphor in there too. Tate just can’t put his finger on it.

\--

Amata, to her credit, doesn’t act like getting two 10mm clips is a weird gift at all. Then again, Amata gave him a quarter for a nation that doesn’t exist anymore. Or does it? Maybe the bombs never really fell. How would they even fucking know?

“Thank you, Tate.” She doesn’t exaggerate her soft smile. It’s not exactly enthusiastic either, but that means it’s sincere. 

Her father goes through her things with some regularity, so she keeps the clips in the reactor level locker next to the BB gun. It bothers Tate to look at the empty space and for there not to be a pistol there.

“I wanted to get you a gun.”

“That would have been nice too. But you would have gotten caught.”

Tate plays with the wrappers in his pockets. “Could’ve gotten caught getting those clips though, didn’t.”

Amata shrugs. She doesn’t bring up the vault door, that Tate still hasn’t gotten back to. Another week and he might be able to try again. This time, he’ll be more decisive, not waste so much time thinking over the thing. He’ll just act. Get it done before he has to put his hands on Stevie Mack’s skin again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments/kudos very much appreciated!


	15. The Immovable Object

130758 > 271257: Come.  
271257 > 130758: come

Before, Tate’s stomach was settled, but watching the two messages come in side by side makes it flip, then try to escape through his esophagus. Choke up black bile. That element of control he thought he had wrestled from the specter of Butch, finally, slips away. Not because Butch refuses him, but because he thinks the same thing. Or thinks about the same thing at the same time and fuck. FUCK.

At least Tate is already dressed, his hair patted down flat, but not brushed, roots showing again, his vault suit zipped all the way up to the collar. This is the first time since he caught Butch looking at him they're gonna go to the room. Since Butch caught Tate looking at Butch looking at Tate. Makes him want to puke.

Tate slips out the front door and walks the halls. He’s gotten used to being eighteen now. While his father can ask where he’s going to at such an hour, Amata is eighteen too, so Tate can use her name. Or decide he doesn’t need a fucking excuse. Oh, but he feels like he needs an excuse. Because what he’s really doing is going to sit in a cramped room that smells like smoke and listen to the cycle of his friend’s breathing as he gets himself off a hair's breath away. And Butch is gonna do the same.

But Tate never makes it to the room. A door opens and Butch reaches out, dragging Tate inside and smashing his back against the shelves. The hard metal edges dig into Tate’s back. His head barely misses hitting against one of the bars. Boxes over their heads shake, but nothing falls. Tate knows it’s Butch, even though he hasn’t yet got a good look at him, because he smells like smoke, and aftershave, even though he doesn’t have to hide anymore.

Butch makes the mistake of not pinning Tate’s arms, so when Tate lunges forward, he can get wrapped around Butch’s waist, shackling Butch’s arms to his side. Butch’s weight crumples the cardboard box behind him, but there’s not enough space in the narrow closet for either of them to get much momentum. Tate doesn’t know why they’re fighting this time.

Lifting up his foot, Butch smashes back down on Tate’s boot. The impact stings, but only a little. Butch twists next, so his back is to Tate’s chest, and lifts his legs off the ground, sticking them against the wall and using leverage to push Tate back into the shelves again.

This time, Tate releases. The fucking edges of the fucking shelves are so fucking sharp.

When Butch turns back around, Tate punches him in the face, twice. Once by his eye and once towards his nose. But it’s not full strength because Tate’s already starting to get kind of hard and he wants this to drag. He doesn’t want to win so quick that it all ends. Butch grabs his nose, muttering, rather than screaming, “Fuck.”

Tate pushes at Butch’s shoulders, getting him against the wall. Butch’s eyes are wide and bright. Emergency lighting lightens the blue. What emergency? Butch doesn’t look angry anymore, blood dripping from his nose and the delicate skin around his eye already filling with liquid too. Tate’s got two stims today. Like he knew, even though they haven’t fought in awhile.

They’re not even really fighting now. But Butch is breathing heavy and so is Tate, their chests crashing against each other like waves on a jagged, insurmountable cliff on every inhale. Tate doesn’t know which of them is the sea, which one the immovable object.

Sublime.

Tate wishes that he wouldn’t hesitate, but he does. That hesitation alone isn’t enough to stop him from pressing his lips to Butch’s. Tasting lightly of blood, of sweat, of smoke. Tate opens his mouth, drawing out their one-sided kiss, every heartbeat of it. Because if Butch were to turn, to hit Tate so hard he couldn’t see straight for weeks, Tate would let him. He’d let Butch destroy him in return for knowing what this feels like.

It feels warm, strangled, consuming.

Butch opens his mouth too. He kisses back, his arms wrapping around Tate’s waist and pulling him in instead of punching back. Instead of shredding the tenuous shift in their intimacy.

Tate thinks he’s going to pass out. He keeps his hands on Butch’s shoulders, not knowing where else to put them. 

Heavy with the weight of...fuck...everything, the moment bursts apart, but not like Tate expected, not at all. Butch pulls away, but not so very far, or long. Only long enough to move his hands from Tate’s waist and into the front of his vault suit. Butch grabs Tate flipping them around and throwing the blond against the wall instead. Then he’s right back to binding their bodies together. Tate can’t think straight. He bites Butch’s lip, not hard, but again and again until Butch hisses in reply. Chewing him up. Butch’s hands are pulling at his hair but Tate wants them to be everywhere else too. On his skin, on his cock, in his ass, and his mouth. He wants to drown all at once and pull Butch under the surface of the water too.

Tate hardens in his suit and pulls Butch forward by his hips until he’s sure Butch is hard too. He is, fuck, he is. This isn’t a joke. For years Tate has been waiting for the trapdoor of Butch’s cruelty to open beneath his feet. To send him spiraling into this endless void of whispers and mocking. But Tate was wrong, the ground beneath his feet is solid. Butch is solid.

They grind together, Tate’s back against the wall and Butch over top of him. Fuck those three inches of difference in their heights. The metal warms as Tate squirms. He spreads his feet apart, hoping Butch will move closer. It’s awkward, finding how their bodies are supposed to fit, but they do. Speaking seems a sin, but Tate will commit it.

“Butch, fuck, Butch,” he barely registers the voice as his, lower than the way he normally speaks. Butch’s teeth are at his neck.

“Tate. You didn’t say,” Butch grinds out the words between white teeth.

Tate doesn’t know what it was he was supposed to say. ‘Butch, I’m queer.’ ‘Butch, I want you.’ ‘Butch, I’m starting to think you like me back.’ ‘Butch, I think you’re straight but we should fuck anyway.’

The only thing Tate manages now is the name, “Butch.”

Tate’s hands are shaking because there’s too much adrenaline in his blood. From the fight first and the kisses now. So many of them, the way they separate and pull back together, Tate can’t count them all. But he puts his fingers on the tab of Butch’s vault suit. Why did he have to wear the suit? Fuck. Tate pulls the zipper down, just a couple of inches. When Butch bucks back into him, Tate finishes the job, dropping the zipper all the way past Butch’s navel. 

“If you have objections to me touching your cock, now would be the time to voice them, Butch,” Tate tries to put on an act, like his heart isn’t screaming in his chest. Like the ventricles haven’t grown mouths for the sole reason of making noise. But he can feel Butch’s thudding too, even though he’s trying to play things off too.

“What a fucking time to ask, Nosebleed.”

Tate snakes his hand into the front of Butch’s suit, down into his boxers. He wants to look, see what his hand is doing, but he’s kind of afraid he’ll lose his nerve if he does. His fingers brush against the hair at the root of Butch’s cock, neatly trimmed, the bastard, feeling out the length of his cock and stroking once he’s got ahold of it. With the vault suit mostly still on, Tate can barely maneuver. But even though they don’t move a whole lot, Butch must like it because he keeps dropping curses against Tate’s mouth, letting them fall to the floor under their boots. Tate swallows up as many as he can before they get crushed. 

He already knows what Butch’s cock looks like. Both soft and hard. And how his own nails are clean and cut short, but his knuckles are kind of mangled from hitting shit. But still, when Tate manages to look at his hand inside Butch’s suit, then outside as he finally pulls Butch’s cock free, he knows even in the deepest fever of his fantasies, he could never have composed a picture so perfect. Because this isn't just a photograph. It breathes.

Butch nearly pulls out a fistful of Tate’s hair when he comes, fast and messy on the front of Tate’s suit and some of it gets on Butch’s exposed singlet too when he pushes into Tate’s hips with his own. Trying to wrestle with Tate’s zipper, Butch fails. Instead he just sort of grabs at Tate’s erection through the fabric. They’re both so desperate that it works. Barely any friction at all and Tate feels like he’s dying, coming inside his clothes. His legs get soft. The wall behind him keeps him from falling.

For a second Tate thinks he’s going to get fucked in this supply closet, covered already in Butch’s cum on his stomach and his saliva on his face. Everything is so messy. 

But Butch pulls back. He looks overwhelmed. Tate doesn’t have the words to comfort him because this is Tate’s comfort. That Butch wants him. Even if it’s only for eight minutes in a fucking supply closet. Even if this is the end.

“Just,” Butch tries to compose himself. “We can’t tell anyone, anyone. Okay?”

Mutely, Tate nods. He’s got no one to tell but Amata. But he wouldn’t. He’ll have to, eventually. If they...fuck. Tate feels like this changes everything. Like, he can’t be happy being Amata’s pretend husband, because now he knows what his name tastes like coming from Butch’s lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)


	16. The tighter circles of authentic intimacy in the wake

When Tate mentions to Butch they're still trying to figure out if the vault has been opened, he volunteers his services.

“We’ll use my card.”

They're in Tate’s office. Butch doesn't have any appointments for the day. Neither of them have mentioned the incident from the other night. That they kissed, that they touched. But Tate’s bones are itching under his skin. Either Butch is waiting for him or he’s waiting on Butch, Tate isn't sure. 

Tate hasn't even bothered turning on his terminal today. He's been writing out ideas on scrap paper. Before Butch came in, he hid his poems in the desk drawer.

If glaciers survived/the end of the last world/I'm not sure I'd want to know/rather would have the option/to drown on his beach

“Really, though,” Tate can't etch into the desktop with his pen, the metal of the desk is stronger than the pen nib. He's broken four pens this way. “How can you move without them knowing. Like, I get you can open all the doors, but there are records.”

Butch corrects, “I can't open all of ‘em. And it's like, easy.” Butch sits forward in his chair. “So, there's a list of doors I'm supposed to be opening, right? And a list of doors I can open, which is longer. When I actually use my card there's like, this script that compares the two tables. When it finds a door on the ‘can open’ list that isn't on the ‘should open’ it just, like, deletes the record I ever did it.”

“So security does know?”

Butch shakes his head, “someone would have to be paying real close attention to the records at the exact moment I hit the door. Even then, they probably wouldn't catch it.”

Tate still doesn't understand, but that doesn't really matter. Butch hasn't mentioned if Tate should tell Amata that Butch is back on board yet, so he resolves not to. Even so, getting to use Butch’s Magic card, instead of his very traceable one, sounds like a good deal.

They don't eat dinner together. Butch slides into a cramped booth that holds him, Wally, Paul, Susie, and Christine. Freddie isn't at dinner. He's been sick for weeks. The Macks and Paul sit on one side of the table, Butch and Christine on the other. Tate tries to get more interested in his mashed carrots. They're so salty though. Like they weren't washed after being drained.

“Don't even look at him, Tate. You don't still feel bad about hitting him, do you?” Amata is asking him to both forget and remember in the same sentence. Tate remembers he wasn't the only one wronged by Butch. Or, maybe more accurately, Butch isn't the only person Tate wronged.

“I don't care.” Of course he does.

Tate lets Amata finish his potatoes if he can have half of her hot dog. It seems like a fair enough trade. James doesn't come to dinner at all. Amata’s father never does. He takes his meals alone.

Under the table, Tate squeezes Amata’s boot between both of his until she growls at him. In response he can only smile, hoping to disarm her flash of anger.

“I'm going to the door.” Dangerous to say more than that. Amata doesn't even fight him, because here they can't talk openly.

Butch leaves seven or eight minutes before Tate and Amata do. Amata leaves Tate to go speak to her father. Doesn't matter about what. But he's her best alibi. Maybe she’ll go to her room and then lie and say Tate snuck in later. That Tate was with her the whole night. The easy deception they've been perpetuating for years tastes worse and worse in Tate’s mouth.

By the first locked door, Butch smokes. Even though he can smoke, he's not supposed to here. Only the the rec room or in the suite he shares with his mom. Paul is the only one who has moved out of his parents quarters so far. The rest of them just hang on.

Butch stomps his cigarette out under his boot.

“That's evidence,” Tate argues.

“This ain't so serious, Nosebleed.” Butch opens the door, letting Tate through first.

The second door is a keycard and a switch. Everyone’s card works, but only Butch’s moves without a trace. They stand in silence, side by side as they hydraulics work.

Red button, toggle switch, display.

Tate slips through the door first. No waiting this time. He's got the layout of the door panel memorized. Hitting the red button, he's still gotta wait for the screen to flicker on.

“Shit, Tate, I wanted to try something.”

“We don't have time.” Tate sticks his hands in his pockets so Butch can't see them shake.

The display comes on, 15.09.76. Current date. Okay, he presses the toggle switch. Butch stands behind him, looking over his shoulder at the display. 30.01.59. 

Tate doesn't realize he's stopped moving until Butch reaches around him to hit the toggle switch again. 02.01.58. And again. 03.02.41. There are more.

“Tate. We need to go.” Butch’s voice trembles.

There are footsteps coming through the door and this time if it's fucking Stevie Mack again Tate might throw Butch at him instead of himself because he doesn't know what the fuck to do anymore. But it's not Stevie, it's Officer Gomez with terse lips and a suspicious glare. “Boys?”

Tate talks first, trying to formulate his plan word by word. “Officer Gomez? What's going on?”

“Fuck, Tate, what the fuck,” Butch whispers.

“What are you doing here?” Officer Gomez asks.

Tate considers hitting the red button again to power down the panel. “We heard noises in here. The door was turned on?” He glances from the panel over to the sealed door. “I was trying to figure out how to turn it back off.”

It's a shitty, shitty lie. 

“Tate,” Gomez starts, “you don't have to cover for Butch.”

Tate inhales sharply, “no, I mean, we both.”

Butch is still standing behind him. He puts his hand in the small of Tate’s back. The soft gesture is unmistakable. ‘It's okay.’

“You're going to need to come with me, DeLoria. You too Tate. Press the red button and let's get out of here.”

Walking out first, Butch’s hand slides around Tate’s back to his hip until the contact breaks. Gomez can't see it with the panel in the way. Only when Butch is halfway out the door does Tate finally press the button, powering down the door. He trots after Butch. Gomez seals the inside door behind them.

Taking hold of Butch’s arm at the bicep, Gomez tells Tate to go back to his father. He's done enough for the day. Butch tries to wrench his arm out of Gomez’ grip but doesn't correct any of the officer’s assumptions. They walk the opposite direction down the hall to security, leaving Tate behind.

\--

Butch spends just twenty-four hours in confinement. Tate feels like shit the whole time because he was the one at the panel. He was the one who turned it on. But this time, Butch isn't mad at him. At least, Tate doesn't think so.

Tate thinks about the dates. 30.01.59, 02.01.58, 03.02.41. How many more before those three? If the door keeps opening, why does no one speak of it? Tomorrow, he’ll be able to tell Amata. There wasn't time to slip away today. Her father kept her busy except for meals.

271257 > 130758: im out  
271257 > 130758: meet in like 10 minutes?

Butch has never given warning before. It has always been ‘come,’ as in, ‘now.’ This time, Tate has the opportunity to ready himself, not just to run, desperate and needy, to see Butch. Pulling on his vault suit only takes a minute. He doesn’t know what to do with the rest of the time. He runs a comb through his hair, lets his hands shake. Doesn’t know what else. So he watches two more minutes tick down, then leaves.

He keeps his hands in his pockets, half expecting Butch to jump out of nowhere and smack him in the face. But that doesn’t happen. Nothing else weird happens.

The door isn’t open. Butch isn’t there. Tate waits another couple minutes until he hears footsteps. Turning, he catches sight of Butch. There’s water droplets in his still-damp hair. He’s freshly showered. So that’s what the ten minutes was about.

Butch keys open the door, lets Tate in first. He makes sure the door doesn’t slam. But once it’s closed Butch’s hands are in Tate’s hair, sliding down to his neck, his back, pushing them both towards the couch. Suddenly, the emergencies are far too bright. They tumble down together. Tate isn’t about to ask questions. Nope.

There’s something precious about the way Butch closes his eyes to kiss. Hiding his light eyes under dark lashes. He tastes like toothpaste. They still haven’t figured it out, how they’re supposed to fit together, especially on the narrow couch. They’re too much leg to get it right. And too much clothing and fruitless tugging at zippers and hair. 

“I wanna,” Butch doesn’t finish, just brings both of his hands to Tate’s zipper this time. He’s on top and slotted with one leg between both of Tate’s. Might be trying to support his own weight but he’s doing a shitty job of succeeding. The pressure of his body is heavy against Tate’s chest. “Just like, I think a lot about…” He fades out again. 

Butch opens Tate’s vault suit to the waist. Focusing on the task, he doesn’t kiss anymore. Tate misses the wet heat and mint of Butch’s mouth. But his look of concentration is sort of hot too.

“Okay, so.” Butch is still pretty inarticulate. But Tate’s not one to judge, because he hasn’t been talking, his head too cloudy with desire. 

Grabbing Tate’s legs, Butch moves them around again, until Tate’s boots are planted flat on the floor. Only dimly does Tate realize what’s happening.

“Butch?”

“Don’t talk, okay? Don’t say anything.”

Tate shuts his mouth. Doesn’t know how long that’ll last, because Butch kicks Tate’s boots further apart so he can kneel on the floor between Tate’s legs. This has to be a fucking dream. Butch breathes real heavy while he pulls Tate’s cock out from his suit. Holds it in his hand and looks at it, like it’s something to be conquered. Leaning forward, he swipes his tongue against the head of Tate’s cock. And now Tate is convinced he’s dying, because even dreams aren’t this good.

One of Butch’s hands digs into the flesh of Tate’s thigh, like he’s gonna fall if they don’t hold on to each other. The other hand stays, warm and dry, around Tate’s shaft while Butch ventures to take more into his mouth. Only gets about halfway down before sucking, trying out different things with his tongue. Good, good, all of them are good as far as Tate is concerned. Butch told him not to talk, but he can’t help but stick his hands into Butch’s hair, still damp. Butch smells like the lemon soap they all use, and the aftershave only Butch uses. 

Tate can’t do it, he can’t stay quiet. Not with the way his senses narrow to his cock in Butch’s mouth. Not with the way he loses control of the rest of himself.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” It’s not eloquent. 

Butch growls around Tate’s dick. With youth and inexperience and all those stacked excuses, even the vibration in Butch’s throat feels good. Only a couple of bobs of Butch’s head, and the sight of his dark hair between Tate’s legs, and Tate starts coming, half-shrieking when it starts, melting against the couch by the time it ends. He’s warm and happy and distant. Butch kind of coughs on the cum, tears at the corners of his eyes when he looks up from his place on the floor.

“Shit,” Butch says.

“Yeah,” Tate replies. “Um, did you want to like, switch?” Butch’s arousal is super apparent through the fabric of his suit and that’s sort of a head trip itself, knowing that Butch wants to suck him off. That Butch swallows his bitter cum and is still fucking hard.

“I guess, yeah.” But instead of stopping at unzipping his suit, Butch stands up and and kicks off his boots. As if in a trance, Tate does too, loosening the laces while he’s still sitting down and then standing. They strip out of their vault suits without talking. Until they’re just in socks and boxers. They keep moving faster and faster, Tate’s not gonna mind when the crash inevitably comes. When they rip each other apart again, because, just as inevitably, they’ll put each other back together too.

The dark head of Butch’s cock pokes through his boxers and sort of instinctively he tries to cover it. But that’s fucking stupid because Tate’s going to put it in his mouth. Right? He’s still sort of thinking about what it would feel like in his ass, smoother and bigger than his fingers. Bigger than fat highlighter he found in his desk drawer that one time...he hadn’t liked that and went back to fingers. But Butch’s cock, Tate’s pretty sure he’d like that.

Butch sits back down, spreading his legs and just waiting. Not forcing Tate to act one way or another.

Tate kneels in front of Butch, running his hands along Butch’s thighs, under his boxers to the groin. Butch moans as Tate brushes against the juncture between hip and thigh. He hasn't even gotten to Butch’s cock yet. But Butch’s skin is so warm, sensitive too.

Pulling his hands from under Butch’s shorts, Tate grabs at the elastic instead, sliding down the fabric and pulling Butch’s cock out. Doesn't bother taking off Butch’s boxers all the way. They're gray checked, and something about that is really fucking painful. Like it's so mundane but also kind of huge.

Tate takes a deep breath and pretends to know what he's doing. He's sort of glad he came first because his head is clearer now. Some of the desperation has edged off. That doesn't mean he quite knows what to do. But Butch did, which probably means someone has been doing it for Butch. And Tate wants to do better than her.

Opening his mouth, Tate starts with the first couple of inches. He tries to keep his teeth covered with his lips so they won't drag. Butch is kind of salty, precum, right. Just at the tip. Tate tries to take more and when Butch hisses and says Tate’s name he gets a little bolder. Tries too much and chokes around it, Butch whining “Fuck.”

And they sound so grown up. They are.

Tate keeps his hand still and just bobs his head in Butch’s lap, coarse hair tickling against his nose. Butch roughly grabs onto Tate’s bleached hair. Fuck, fuck he likes that. Wants to tell Butch how much he likes it but his mouth is full of cock.

Surprisingly, Butch is quiet as he comes, a rush into Tate’s open mouth. He tries to swallow quick enough he doesn't choke. He fails, spitting up some of it into the floor. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, Tate turns back to Butch, who’s looking down at him.

“Fuck,” Butch grabs onto his own hair, panting heavy, “holy shit.”

Tate gets up from the floor, intending to sit next to Butch on the couch, but Butch drags him back down into his lap. Straddling Butch, Tate’s not sure what to do next, so he just kisses and kisses until he forgets to worry about what Butch is thinking. Because Butch’s arms hold him in place. Like they're going to vanish from each other’s hands. 

But this is the vault. People die, but they do not simply vanish, right? Tate’s gotta remember, he never existed in the first place. But this, but Butch, this is real.

“You taste so good,” Tate laughs, his lips still bumping into Butch’s. He's not willing to pull that far back.

“Brushed my teeth,” Butch mumbles.

They both laugh, because they know that's not it. Tate should feel weirdly exposed, being this close to naked, on top of Butch. Fuck, he can still taste him between his teeth. But while they're both keyed up they're not really hard, lazily running their hands all over each other. Butch keeps slipping his hands up the legs of Tate’s boxers, running his fingers across hips and groin, but not around to Tate’s ass. Tate doesn't want to ask. He scratches from Butch’s shoulder, over to his pectoral. It's enough to leave red lines on Butch’s skin, but not to break it. Nails too short for that.

“The fuck, Nosebleed.” Doesn't sound angry, really just sort of, adrift. Maybe they both are. Because now that they're clinging to each other, the rest of the world feels like a vast ocean.

“Had to make sure this is real.”

“Normally you pinch yourself for that. Not fucking claw the shit out of me.”

Tate shrugs. Maybe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and kudos very much appreciated!


	17. Forward Momentum that Keeps You From Careening off the Edge

For the first time in months, Butch joins Tate and Amata downstairs. He's zipped up in his vault suit all the way to the collar, his hair is perfectly in place, and smells of Christine’s perfume. 

This is fine.

“He needed my help,” Butch grins at Amata, gesturing at Tate.

“Fuck off, I did not,” Tate rolls his eyes.

Amata watches them both with suspicion. Are they standing too close together? If anything, there is more space between them than there used to be. At least, before Tate nearly killed Butch. Sometimes when he closes his eyes, Tate can still see it, how the light went out of Butch’s eyes, if only for a millisecond. 

“What did you find?” She brings them back to the topic at hand.

“The door has been opened,” Tate says, “at least three times, maybe more.”

Butch checks his pipboy, “January 30th, ‘59. January 2nd, ‘58. February 3rd, ‘41.”

“Why those dates?” Amata asks. She can't be expecting a real answer.

Tate's mouth is dry, “The first two, they're around the time we were born…”

Butch intercedes, “the date on the display only shows the last two digits of the year. So we don't know if the last time was 2259 or 2159.”

“No, no I think Tate is right. It's gotta be 2259, 2258,” Amata says.

“There's a big gap, right...between uh,” Tate tries to think of any connection. “Susie Mack and Monica Kendall, right? Like, years without any new kids.”

Amata bites the very tip of her manicured nail. “Susie was born in September of ‘58.”

“That other date, January of ‘58. I was born the December before, Wally was in November,” Butch adds.

“And all the rest of us were born in between, you, me, Freddie, Paul…”

“And Christine,” Amata finishes.

“That's a lot of kids close together,” Butch adds. Yeah, a lot of kids. And before Wally, there's a bunch of empty years before Stevie and a couple of other kids. All of the births are bunched together like that. Amata was onto something, before, with the missing children. They just hadn't fit the puzzle together quite right.

Amata starts pacing the floor. “I need to think. What does this mean? Why would everyone, everyone lie? All the adults must know. And there has to be a reason we don't, right? What are they hiding?”

Tate grabs hold of Amata’s arm, keeping her from chewing her nail clean off. She's got red polish on her teeth now, chipped away into her mouth from the chewing. “What do you need from us, Amata?” 

She sighs, “nothing right now. I'll tell you if something comes up. But, right now, I've got to think.”

“Your old man’s terminal,” Butch doesn't give her the space to think. He doesn't give Tate enough space either, because even under the aftershave and Christine, Tate can still smell him. “That's the source, right? It's so simple.”

“No!” Amata snaps. “No, we’ll all get caught, there's no way.”

Butch keeps quiet. So does Tate. They both know Butch can get away with it. But Amata doesn't know. And for some reason, Butch thinks it important to keep a bunch of secrets. Like that he's a fucking computer genius, that he smokes in disallowed spaces, and that in the middle of the night, he puts Tate’s cock in his mouth.

Even though Butch mumbles “Never mind,” Tate knows he still plans on hacking the terminal.

\--

Tate’s job for Amata is to wait. Tate’s job for Butch is to try and figure out the Overseer’s movements throughout the day. Easier said than done, because even though no one comes to the chaplain’s office, Tate’s still supposed to be there. His desk has defeated many paper clips, and still not a scratch on it. 

It's ten am and Tate takes out his notebook. He's crossed out more lines than he's kept. Most of them sound garbage. 

He’ll break me apart against the rocks/I've heard they are like concrete/unyielding and cold until you press your palms/against the surface that can only wear/never shatter

Tate wishes he had pictures in his mind that weren't just polymer and metal. Wishes that he knew living things. That he knew stars. They don't have any pictures of stars. Only words on the page that talk about glowing orbs in the sky, more distant than the sun, but like the sun. Just like it. But Tate doesn't know shit about the sun either.

The Overseer walks past Tate’s office. He doesn't look in or say hello. In the months that have passed since both Tate and Amata have turned eighteen, the Overseer has been cooler towards Tate, less indulgent. Maybe he thinks Tate’s eyes are wandering. Well, strictly speaking, they are.

Tate starts the timer on his pipboy, waiting to see how long the Overseer will be out of his office. He scratches the time onto the sheet of paper in front of him. 13:03. Above that he has written, 12:59, 13:02, 13:15. These are the times the Overseer leaves to pick up lunch in the diner. But he doesn't eat there, bringing the meal back to his office. Generally between eight and twelve minutes total. Tate might be able to open the window a little more, ask Alphonse a question or two, so Butch has enough time to get out. 

Because Tate’s gotta wait to track the Overseer, he's been missing lunch entirely. His stomach growls. Hopefully a week’s worth of data is enough. 

The Overseer isn't back yet when Butch slips into Tate’s office, shutting the door behind him.

“How am I supposed to know when he comes back if the door is closed?” Tate huffs, slouching down in his chair.

Butch pulls a sandwich wrapped in a cloth napkin from his bag. He drops it on the desk in front of him before reaching for a second. That one he hands to Tate.

“Eight to twelve minutes right around 13:00. I don't know if we’re gonna get more precise than that, Nosebleed.” He sits across from Tate, taking a bite of his sandwich. Chewing and talking, Butch continues, “You'll have to message me when he leaves, and then I'll just book it to his office.”

Tate starts pulling off the crust from the white bread. He eats the crust first. “You don't want me to come with you?”

“Nah, Nosebleed, I need you to message me again when he's heading back.”

Tate tells Butch his plan to talk to the Overseer, buy him more time. As he explains, Butch nods. He seems to think it's a good idea, though they don't know how much extra time that'll make. Butch still needs to be prepared to get in and out in seven minutes.

“Can you do it that fast?”

Butch smiles, “It’ll be easy.”

They finish their dry sandwiches. Tate’s still sort of hungry and unsatisfied, but bits of salty jerky on bread is better than nothing. Butch brushes the crumbs off of his vault suit. When Butch stands to go, he sort of leans over Tate’s desk before stopping himself, pulling back and saying, “Later, Nosebleed.”

It doesn't occur to Tate until sometime later that Butch was trying to kiss him goodbye.

\--

They lose their nerve a couple of times, and it's not until December that they find it again. A couple of days before Butch turns nineteen, he says he's ready. He knows he can manage the hack fast enough. 

Tate’s legs bounce under his desk from excessive energy. Listening for footsteps, he doesn't bother to scribble anything down. When he writes poetry now, he leaves more words on the page than he crosses out. He doesn't know if it's because he's getting better or because he doesn't care as much when the words are wrong. They're kind of pretty when they're broken, when the meter doesn't work.

The message is already typed out on his pipboy. Just needs the right second to hit send. Butch already brought him a sandwich earlier, wrapped in one of those cloth napkins. Tate’s eaten the crust already.

Tate hears the right footsteps.

130758 > 271257: Now.

Tate doesn't get a response; he isn't expecting one. Butch needs every second he can wrestle to try and get into the terminal in the Overseer’s office. Out of habit, Tate starts his timer, though the time doesn't matter, only the thud of footsteps on metal floors.

Six minutes later, boots cross in front of Tate’s open door.

130758 > 271257: TIME

“Mr. Almodovar?” Tate stands up from his desk, hopping over it to get to his door. “Do you have a second?”

The Overseer grunts, “Not now, Tate. Can it wait?”

Tate grabs onto the doorframe, leaning forward toward the Overseer, still in the hall. He has an idea, but he's not sure if he can bring himself to use it. “Just, uh, yeah, I guess. Was about Amata.”

Alphonse’s face softens a little at the mention of his daughter. The guy might be a shitbag, but he does love Amata. Maybe just doesn't know how to show it. Tate and him have that in common, maybe. Because Tate’s always fucking up too. 

“Tomorrow, alright?” The Overseer says.

“Yeah,” Tate swallows, “tomorrow.” He’ll spend all of tomorrow with his door closed or something. Hopefully the Overseer will forget to come talk.

Tate goes back to his desk. But he's too nervous. Butch hasn't sent nothing. Sending more messages doesn't seem like the answer either. By now, Butch is either caught or back in the barbershop. Tate’s gotta know. 

Listening to his feet against the floor, rather than the blood in his ears, Tate makes his way to the shop. The door is shut, he's gotta knock.

“Sec,” he hears Butch call. Shit, it hadn't even occurred to him that Butch would be in there with someone.

“I can come back?” Tate offers.

The door slides open, Butch smiles on the other side. “Don't you fucking dare, Nosebleed.” Grabbing at the front of Tate’s suit, Butch pulls him inside, shutting the door behind.

Tate doesn't want to get beaten to the punch, so he grabs Butch’s waist with both hands, squeezing and kneading while Butch smiles, trying to chase down Tate’s lips. As a tease, a bit of fight still there in the tips of their fingers, Tate pulls his neck back so Butch misses Tate’s lips, only so he can lunge forward again. 

They crash around the little room, bumping into countertops and shelves. Nothing falls, because it ain't that rough, just enough that they don't forget who they are. Tate snakes his hands up Butch’s body, tangling his hands in the back of his hair. It's sort of stiff with pomade and Butch curses, “You're such a shit.”

“I know,” Tate starts at Butch’s zipper. This is probably too risky, too close to their public lives, to mess around here. Like they're going to scrape and scrape at the veneer until the real them just breaks straight through. Too much friction and pressure. Tate can feel Butch hard against his thigh. It just never stops. A waterfall of excess Tate’s never going to be able to plug back up now that he's got Butch.

They try to be careful, because Butch barks something about a client in fifteen minutes. Tate reckons he’ll be done in five because Butch keeps shoving his tongue down Tate’s throat while stroking his cock. They're careful to not get cum on their suits. The sink in the shop means they can wash their hands after. Butch’s hands are shaking when he zips Tate’s suit back up to the neck. It's such a sweet gesture, Tate feels like he's gotta deflect.

“What did you find?” Tate asks.

Butch stops moving, one hand still on Tate’s hip. “Yeah, um, 2241. Buncha people died. But open. It was opened.”

Tate's scared to ask about the other dates. “We shouldn't talk here, I guess.” Pulling away, Tate’s gotta get out of the way before Pepper Gomez’ appointment. Doesn't even take the time to tease Butch that he's really a hairdresser now, cutting women’s hair too.

This time it's Tate who thinks about kissing Butch goodbye, but they still don't do it. There's always tomorrow.

\--

Amata is angry at first, at what Butch and Tate have done. Butch is all smiles, hands in his pockets rattling off how clever they were to get into the files. Even after all his explaining, Amata is still furious.

“You're both such idiots!” She forgets to be quiet. The reactor level is kind of a sanctuary, but nowhere in the vault offers absolute privacy. “He may not know now, but he is going to know.”

“Don't worry, doll,” Butch soothes. Tate still hates that endearment, “he ain't gonna know.”

“I should have never trusted you,” she turns to face Tate, “you either!” She shoves him. Tate isn't ready for it, but he still doesn't really budge, just absorbing her anger. If it makes her feel better, she's welcome to it.

“But now we know for certain, right?” Tate offers by way of apology. Cause he's not really sorry. Nah. This is what they needed.

“What now? We can't prove it. The evidence is in his files, but not in our hands. Fuck.” The curse is soft.

Butch curses too, but Tate still thinks they came out ahead.

\--

They still shoot. Well, Amata shoots, Tate doesn't. Sometimes Butch joins them. He doesn't smell like Christine’s perfume anymore. Tate would know if he did.

Butch meets Tate in previously locked closets, on the fringes of their claustrophobic civilization. The endless stretch of days. But it's not endless in a bad way anymore. Because even though they don't kiss each other goodbye, they sure as hell kiss hello, when they’re alone. They don't turn on the vids anymore, even when they're in that strange room Tate still can't make sense of. He's thankful it exists though, because they can sit on the couch, Butch can grab Tate everywhere. 

Licking, grinding, sucking, repeat. Butch gets down on his knees in another closet, the one closest to Tate’s office. He pulls out Tate’s cock and does better this time. It's always better. Even though this isn't new anymore. Tate’s lost track. He can taste his cum on Butch’s tongue. There are scratch marks on his abdomen, all the way to his pubic hair. No one ever sees.

There were these things called butterflies/past tense, I think/can't know for sure/But we’ve preserved them in language/and trapped them in our chests./I can feel them hiding in there/I should charge them for the convenience.

They don't talk about what they’re doing, how they feel. But they laugh a lot, and smile. So Tate doesn't worry too much. He's not going to wreck this. Not when it feels so fucking good.

Amata doesn't talk about the outside. Tate doesn't bring it up. Once, just once, Butch tries to. 

Parroting back, with dead eyes, Amata says she's sure everything above ground is dead, diseased. Not for a second does Tate think Amata believes her own words because she cried over photographs. She wants to see, and it's killing her they can't.

“My father knows,” she says one day. Her arms have gotten thin.

At dinner, Tate doesn't eat any of her food. She doesn't eat any of it either, tossing away her rations. Makes Tate fucking mad as hell, but he would never raise a hand to Amata, so instead, he shoves Butch into an INACCESSIBLE door where everyone can see them fight. There's a lot of shoving and grabbing. No punching this time. Tate wants Butch to swing first, so he goads and goads.

“You've gotten weak,” Tate growls.

“I'll show you what I got, Nosebleed,” he winds up to strike.

Tate ducks under the punch, grappling at Butch's waist and knocking them both over. His erection digs into Butch’s thigh, now they've gotta stay on top of each other or the gathered crowd will notice. Wally’s yelling that Butch should kick his ass. Grunting, Butch tries to wrench Tate's arms away from his shoulders, but he's too weak.

“What the fuck!” 

Spitting in Butch's face, Tate climbs off. 

“Fucking gross!” But Butch can't mean it, because he swallows more than that all the time.

Security is already waiting for them. This time, they only take Tate. Officer Wolfe curses, “Damn kids,” and hauls Tate away. Tate doesn't fight him. Maybe he does need to cool off. The taste of copper fills his mouth when he licks his lips.

Tate only spends a couple of hours in the security confinement cell to ‘cool down’ before his father comes to get him. He spends the time with his eyes closed, crumpled up on the bench, his head resting against the wall behind him. Tate tries to think about nothing at all, because if he throws himself against the walls, they’ll try to keep him longer. Or his father will try to talk to him, anyone will try to help him. And he doesn't want help. He just wants his mind to slow down. Talking only makes it faster.

“What did he do this time, Tate?” His father asks.

Tate responds, “nothing,” because there is no explanation. Other than he can't hit Amata, but he can hit Butch. Even if they also kiss. And he can't kiss Amata either. So he's just tangled up in yeses and nos.

\--

Tate keeps his hips between Butch’s thighs. They've both already come. Jerked each other off, this time, in the weird little room with the terminal they don't turn on anymore. Don't need the pretext of pre-War babes shoving things inside their cunts. There's no pretext at all. Except maybe Tate thinks Butch only likes this because he's proven to be easier than Christine, or more available or something. But Christine was sucking Butch’s cock before this right? Tate’s never asked directly, but he can assume. From how Butch kind of, sort of, knew what to do.

Butch keeps playing with Tate’s hair, running it through his fingers, pulling, looking at the ends, smelling it. Tate just rests his head against Butch’s chest and lets him. He could fall asleep like this. If they don't get up soon, he will. The ventilation has stopped running. It does at three am on the dot every time they're in here. Starts back up at five. Not that they've ever spent a full two hours together. That would be too long, they'd be missed, maybe. But they've seen either end of the cycle.

Butch moves one hand out of Tate’s hair, to the small of his back, rucking up Tate’s singlet and touching against where the muscle dips in, then back out. His fingers are warm, too gentle. If Tate had the energy, he tells himself, he'd rip out Butch’s fingernails for that. But not really.

Even though this is real, it's still sort of a fantasy. Because Tate and Butch can't build a life together. They can't get assigned their own suite, kiss in the hallways, share a bed. They can't make promises about the future. Declarations. But maybe Tate can figure out another way. One where the fantasy doesn't die, but runs along side their public life. Where the backstage of their lives is vivid and beautiful, while the performance withers.

\--

“My father knows,” this time when Amata says it, her voice is assertive. “He knows what you and Butch did.”

They're in the hallway, not her bedroom, not the reactor level. They're in the front stage of their lives, not the interstitial spaces. Anyone can hear, only no one bothers to listen. 

Tate doesn't respond, because there is nothing to say. What are the possible consequences? Would the Overseer kill them for what they know? Some sort of accident, maybe. Lock them in one of those rooms. INACCESSIBLE. Maybe that's what they were for all along. If he and Butch ever raid another room, Tate will be sure to look for scratch marks on the insides of doors, bones piled into corners.

“He’ll ignore it,” Amata’s fingers are still twined with Tate’s. She hasn't let go completely. “Everyone will ignore it. That's how we’ve gotten so far.”

Tate grunts at her side. Yeah, they’ll bury their fucking heads in the sand. That is how they've gotten this far, how their ancestors ended up in this predicament in the first place. Making underground-children for an underground world. They were supposed to be the saviors of humanity. Really they just cannibalize themselves. And Tate doesn't have the hubris to think he could change that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading, comments and kudos very much appreciated. There will be 20 chapters total.


	18. The inevitable crash; Flying too close

130758 > 271257: Come to my room.

Tate stares at the line of text in green letters on his pipboy screen. He's written it before, maybe a half a dozen times. But he's never sent the message. Sitting up in his bed, dressed for sleep with his legs folded, Tate considers what this would mean, to have Butch come to his room. He looks away from the pipboy to pull the covers around his lap. He's not cold though. Sweat runs down his spine. Excitement.

The thing is, Tate’s wanted this for a long time, though he's never told Butch. Even after they suck or touch, sometimes, Tate goes back to his bed, locks the door, slicks his fingers, sticks them inside himself, pretends it's Butch. But he's never figured out how to bring it up, or if it's something Butch would want or they'd have to talk about it. Tate never thought any of this would happen so he doesn't have a plan on how to be like, ‘hey, Butch, why don't you try sticking your cock in my ass.’ It's weird, terrifying, amazing enough that they kiss.

But Tate wants this, even if for Butch it's just pretend. If all this time Butch pretends that Tate is a woman and not himself. But, like, that can't be it because Butch keeps putting his mouth on Tate’s dick and if Tate being a guy bothered him he wouldn't do that. But even if, even if Butch is pretending, that's okay, Tate still wants to know what it feels like to have Butch’s cock inside him instead of his own fingers.

130758 > 271257: Come to my room.

Tate hits the button to send.

It's just after midnight, but James has been spending longer and longer nights in the clinic. Tate doesn't know why and he doesn't ask. He's seen his dad talking to Jonas too. Sometimes Jonas smiles at Tate kind of sad, like he pities Tate. Tate wonders what his father has told his assistant. Fuck.

271257 > 130758: k

Butch doesn't even ask why, he just says that he’ll come. No questions. Tate lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding. Probably doesn't need to tell Butch that his father isn't there because Butch is smart enough in any case.

He's never invited Butch to his room before. But it feels...right? Like, Tate doesn't want Butch to fuck him for the first time in that strange room or some fucking closet in between work shifts. Honestly, Tate doesn't mind the hurried pace otherwise. Likes that it's still nails and teeth, as much like fighting as before. Likes the quiet moments too, he supposes. But something doesn't feel quite right about asking Butch to fuck him like that, at least...not this first time.

Before Butch can arrive, Tate double checks his dresser drawer. There's a bottle of lube in there he stole from the clinic weeks ago because the old bottle ran out, he's been using it so much. But it just makes everything easier. His mind starts racing, wondering if he should have stretched himself out with his fingers before asking Butch to come over. He'd showered...and sort of gotten hard under the water but didn't finish. Touched himself, though, pretending it was Butch's hands.

The keycard is in the outside door. Nerves all on end, Tate can hear it.

Butch comes through Tate’s door next, softly shutting it behind him. His hair is done and his vault suit on, must've not been ready for bed, then. Tate feels weirdly naked in his boxers and thin shirt, barefoot too, even though Butch has obviously seen him in less. Though they've never really been like, both naked-naked at the same time or anything. Just, there's never time.

“What?” Butch asks, his eyes bright, even though the lights are dim. Tate knows his are only ever dark. He hopes Butch still sees something that he likes.

“You know what.” Tate gets up on his knees on the side of the bed, pulling Butch down by the front of his suit until they're kissing. Nipping at Butch’s bottom lip, he says, “it's okay, my dad won't be back for hours.”

Butch nods, “okay, okay.”

“Um, take off your suit, okay?”

“Yeah.” Butch's hands are steadier than his voice. Gotta take off his boots too. He leaves it all in a pile on the floor.

Tate pulls the sheet off his lap, tossing it to one side. “Get in, I guess.”

The bed is sort of too narrow for two people, but they fit if they go chest to chest, groin to groin. Would fit better if they were one on top of the other, but Tate’s not gonna push it yet. He grabs at the hem of Butch’s shirt, skirting his fingers around from his back to his hip to his stomach, then everything in reverse. Butch gets hard a little slower, maybe because he's nervous about the change in location. Maybe just nervous in general. So Tate tries to be brave, coaxing open Butch’s mouth with his tongue and teeth, trying to suck out all the air from his lungs. Butch kisses back, lips parted, sharing breath. Makes Tate dizzy, that he can lead and Butch will follow on his own accord.

Emboldened, Tate starts pulling at Butch’s shirt, until they wrestle him out of it. He puts his palms flat against Butch’s chest. Nipping down the line of hair in the center. Asshole. Tate touches Butch’s nipples too, ghosting his thumbs over them until they turn hard. He stares, transfixed.

“You too, yeah?” Butch breaks the relative silence. His hands grip Tate’s shirt.

“Oh, yeah, right.” Tate shifts his weight around until they're both naked from the waist up. They're not rushing like normal. But they're not really languid either, too keyed up for that, always. Just sort of cautious, like they know they're gonna fall off the cliff.

Butch touches Tate too, their arms and fingers crossing paths as they try to map routes on each other’s skin. It's clumsy, but neither mind. They’ll get better, Tate’s sure of at least that. Butch’s skin is warm, flushed, turning pinker the more they touch. Tate likes that, a lot, how Butch’s ears get red. He bites at a lobe, it's sort of thick and springy, he has to stop himself from laughing.

“You're weird,” Butch comments; he's smiling.

“I know. I guess.” Tate scrapes one finger along Butch’s jaw, closing the distance and kissing again.

Tate rolls so he's on top of Butch, getting Butch to lay on his back, his head on the pillow. He straddles Butch’s still-covered hips, but their erections still bounce against each other as they move. Digging his fingers into Butch’s chest, Tate grinds down on top of him. Maybe he's still hoping Butch will say something first. But maybe the thought has never crossed Butch’s mind.

Reaching behind him, Tate grabs the sheet off the bed and tosses it so it falls over them. Pulling it around, Tate hides their heads under the sheet, creating a space inside a space, one that never existed before. It's almost dark, but not quite. Smells like the detergent the laundry has used their whole lives.

“Butch?”

Butch strokes his hands across Tate’s abdomen, just above the elastic of his boxers. “Yeah, Tate?”

“I want to try something, something we haven't done before, okay? That's why I wanted you to come here. Not some fucking closet, okay?”

“Whatever you want, Tate.”

Tate’s flooded with so much warmth in his veins he almost says something he knows he’ll regret. Because Butch can't possibly know, he can't. Butch rubs one palm against Tate’s hip. 

“What do you want to do?”

Tate swallows his fear. “I want you to fuck me.”

And like all the times before, Butch doesn't scream or fight, or hit Tate real hard. His hand on Tate’s hip does get tighter though, like he's gonna crush it.

“Fuck, Tate,” Butch screws his eyes shut, then opens them. They look at each other for a long while under the sanctuary of the sheet, their own little fort. “Okay, yeah, you'll have to...how?”

So they are going to have to talk through it, at least a little. Tate wishes maybe he had some beer first or something, anything to make the edges a little blurry because, fuck, explaining to Butch how to stick his dick into him is fucking embarrassing as fuck. 

“Like you would a girl? But like, shit. In my ass, okay? Like,” Tate knows he's gotta start making sense eventually.

“I haven't, before, Tate. Fuck. I haven't, with a girl. I mean.”

Oh. What?

“But, Christine?” Tate's not sure if he should be horrified or relieved. If that's true, Butch didn't do it with Christine, or Susie, or anyone else, what does that mean about them? That those girls’ hands weren't on Butch like Tate’s have been. That they didn't suck Butch or fuck him. That him and Butch could be the same, maybe.

“I kissed her, I mean...I liked kissing her. I guess I like girls too. But, um, I would think about you too. Like, all the time. Fuck. Let's not talk about this, okay? Like, we’ll just figure this out. If it's what you want.”

“Do you want to?”

“Fuck, Nosebleed, stop asking dumbass questions and explain to me how this is supposed to work,” Butch grits his teeth.

Tate’s gotta get the lube from the dresser drawer, which means sticking his head out from under the sheet. He grabs it, then hides again. Dropping the bottle onto Butch’s lap, he starts rattling off the explanation. “Like, okay so girls are supposed to be wet or whatever, right? Um, but guys, or I guess, fuck okay, so we gotta like, use this. We put it in me, right? So it like, slides easier. And we should put it on your cock too.”

“You've done this?” Butch looks progressively more worried.

“Not with like, another person!” The pitch of Tate’s voice keeps rising, he's gotta keep it together. “But sometimes...with my fingers, yeah.”

“Okay, okay. So um, do you want me to put my fingers in you, like, first?”

Tate lets out a strangled gasp because that's about the best thing he's heard from anyone's mouth ever. The idea that Butch is gonna stick his fingers into him, then his cock. Could be more forceful, more demanding. Like those guys in the vids who tell the women to ‘take it, take my cock,’ but this is pretty fucking good too because even though it's a little unsure, the words are rendered in Butch’s voice.

“Yes. Do that. Um, here, you get on top of me instead.” Tate really wishes the bed were bigger. But they get situated, Tate spreading his legs around Butch’s. He nearly drops one foot off the side of the bed altogether, but decides against it. Butch presses one hand flat to Tate’s chest, feeling how his lungs inhale and exhale. Like he's trying to learn the pattern of it.

Tate opens up the bottle, “Gimmie your hand.”

Butch still has to support his weight with one hand, but he offers his left. That's good, don't have to worry about the pipboy getting in the way or anything. Tate helps rub the lube over Butch’s hand. Too much, probably.

“So, okay, okay,” Tate’s gotta move around some more so he can get his boxers off. He's flexible enough that he can drag his legs around Butch and toss them to the side. He keeps the sheet over their hips, but it slides off of Butch’s shoulders. By now, Butch’s hand should be warm again. “Just start with one finger, alright? And work your way from there.” Tate’s never tried more than three, but Butch’s hands are bigger.

“Okay,” Butch brushes against him, not quite the right spot. He's not looking, but tries to feel Tate out. There's hesitation, sure, but there always has been. Butch sinks his finger in, more smoothly than either of them expect. Tate’s mouth falls open. Oh. It's not much of anything, having Butch inside him to the knuckle, but it's kind of everything too, because they're going to do this. “Move your finger, like, in and out,” Tate instructs.

Butch keeps quiet, “Like this?” Sounds like he's afraid to hurt Tate. But they've hurt each other plenty, with fists and teeth and separation, loneliness even when they share the same recycled air. 

“Yeah, Butch, yeah.”

Butch leans over so he can kiss him. Slow and steady, the tide comes in. Neither of them move too fast. Seems a shame to waste it. Blood pounds in Tate’s ears. He can hear Butch too, how his breath hitches before he moves again.

“Tate?”

That's not Butch.

The overhead lights come on, all at once and too bright. Tate’s too afraid to be angry. Butch’s eyes are wild. Neither of them can find the courage to look. It's Tate’s father. The door is already open. Butch pulls his hand away. Shit. Fuck. FUCK.

“Tate?” James repeats himself. He doesn't sound angry, just as shocked as the two of them.

“Fuck.” Tate doesn't know what else to do. “Get the fuck out!”

Butch must finally come to his senses because as soon as James closes the door, he's up and out of bed, grabbing his suit from the floor. He forgets his boots and shirt. He forgets Tate too, just trying, desperately, to get his suit on. He only half succeeds. Tate is on the verge of sobbing, but he's not gonna because that's fucking weak. He just watches as Butch bolts out the door. He still forgets his shoes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe how close we are to the end...THANK YOU to everyone who has been supporting this fic and commenting and leaving kudos, it really means a lot to me.


	19. Our Demise at the End of the Line

271257 > 130758: you aint mad r u  
130758 > 271257: No.  
271257 > 130758: did he say anything  
130758 > 271257: Wants to see me in the clinic tomorrow.  
271257 > 130758: shit

It's been three days since James caught Butch and Tate in bed together. Life proceeds as normal. Amata picks at her nails and doesn't eat enough, terrified of her father. Tate leans back in his office chair and waits for his dad to barge in and scream. Tate only sees Butch in passing. They haven't risked anything else. Things are sure to settle down, eventually. But right now they're all on edge. Tate wishes he could kiss Butch though, to make sure everything is really okay. Feel Butch’s hands in his hair, on his back, cursing about how neither one of them knows what the fuck they're doing, only that they'll have to figure it out together.

271257 > 130758: i miss you  
130758 > 271257: I miss you too.

Too sentimental. 

\--

Tate shuffles down the hall to the clinic. His dad told him, rather than asking, that he has an appointment today. This has gotta be about Butch, about what James walked in on a few days back. Only James is too chicken-shit to talk to Tate directly. Like he doesn't know what's going on with Tate, ever. That's what makes Tate so fucking angry. His own father believes not what he sees, but what he wants to see, rather than who Tate is.

James is at his desk, engrossed in whatever is on his terminal. Tate doesn't knock, just flops down onto the chair across from him, limbs draped over the armrests. He expects to be scolded for being late, but the reprimand doesn't come.

“Ready for your check up, Tate?” James deflects. Tate knows full well this ain't got anything to do with his health. He's healthy, he's fine. 

That's a lie, he's broken and mangled but fuck he feels more alive than he has in a long time, even with the creeping fear of being found out, Butch running from his bedroom, forgetting his boots. Tate still has them, tucked under his bed.

“I guess,” Tate shrugs, brushing his hair away from his eyes, “only been seven months, though.” He gives his father an opening to tell the truth, to be angry or frustrated or whatever he needs to be. Then Tate can get angry in return and maybe they can finally know each other instead of chasing specters of intimacy.

“Why don't we get you on the table, hm?” He's so fucking clinical. But Tate listens, hopping up onto the examination table and rolling up his left sleeve. Tate stares at the wall ahead of him, the criss cross of wires and pipes. His dad checks his heart, his blood pressure, takes two vials of blood. Everything looks so fucking normal abstracted like this. Like Tate can just be reduced to numbers and blood behind glass.

His dad doesn't talk to him again until, “Let's get your height and weight.”

Mutely, Tate stands on the scale. 172 pounds. He doesn't look when his father takes his height. “Still 5’9”?” Tate asks. His father's face tightens, and he nods. That's a lie, and they both know it. But they keep perpetuating it between them, have been for about a year now. Tate keeps hoping one day it won't be a lie anymore.

There's a battery of questions his dad asks every patient, every time. Tate's heard them hundreds of times, backwards and forwards, from the days in his adolescence when his dad wanted to keep him close. Does Tate think about hurting himself? Hurting others? Is he sad? Or hopeless? Doesn't matter what Tate feels, he answers ‘no, no, no.’ Because just one yes, one time, would be worse.

The questions come faster and faster. Tate grips the side of the exam table until his knuckles turn white. He wants to smash his fists into his dad’s face, show him how much he thinks about hurting himself, hurting others. But he bites back the anger. Tries to swallow it. Sour on his tongue, burning down his throat.

Have you been sexually active in he he last 12 months?" There it finally is, the real question. Tate's almost relieved. 

"Is that what this is about, dad?" He turns his face away, looking off to the side, past the big glass window, out into the empty hall. Tapping his fingers against the underside of the table, he waits for his father’s answer.

“I'm asking you as your doctor, not as your father." Bullshit. It's only because James sucks as a father that he's trying to pull this shit as Tate’s doctor. But Tate ain't so sure he's that great at being a doctor either. Never could figure out what is wrong with Tate.

"But you know the answer.” Tate looks around the room, out into the hall, tries to look into the back of his own skull, anywhere but at James. The anger is sort of gone, replaced by a trembling nervousness. 

"With women?" James asks. Of all the fucking things. Like, he fucking saw. He saw who Tate is, and he wants to look the other direction.

"Naw, dad, you know. You've always known, just didn't want to believe it." He finally looks at his father, hoping for some molecule of understanding. He finds none. Just eyes that look like his, dark and hooded, looking back at him. Scares him to think about, even now, that he might be his father’s mirror. Because they're both so alien, here in the vault. They don't fit.

Why does Tate have no birth record?

"No I don't.” James says. “With men?"

"Yeah. I guess, sort of." Tate wants to say more. That he doesn't know what counts or doesn't. That they didn't get so far, that was the first time. Other than mouths and hands. And sometimes he feels so full he might burst. But Amata is always scared, and Butch doesn't want to talk about how they feel. And Tate doesn't really want to talk either, but he also can't keep it all inside. But his father cuts him off.

“We should talk about how you can protect yourself.”

Tate sits in a daze through the lecture, about diseases no one in the vault has ever had, as far as he knows. And about pregnancy, even though Tate knows well enough he can't get pregnant from Butch’s cock in his ass. And that he should wear this condom thing on his dick before intercourse. But like, he doesn't think about putting his cock in anyone all that often, though maybe he'd like to do it to Butch too, maybe. Butch’d probably look good like that. And his father circles back around to illness, like that's the most important thing. But Tate doesn't have a second to say that Butch hasn't fucked anyone else. Hell, neither of them have fucked anyone because James fucking walked in on them.

When the lecture is over, the condom feels like lead in Tate’s fist. He flips it over: expiry date sometime in 2079. The fuck? No sooner is he out the clinic door before he tosses that shit into the garbage. Everything is lost between James and Tate in transmission. Too much static, too much willful ignorance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter is so short! It's just how the scenes broke out because I'd like to keep the final sequence as a single chapter.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who has commented and kudoed and just ahhh thank you!


	20. The fool and the flower bed

“Tate, Tate!” Amata’s voice cuts through his dreamless restlessness. “Tate, you have to wake up!”

Tate rolls over on his side trying to brush the drowsiness from his eyes. It's still early, and he's disoriented, unused to be woken by anything other than his pipboy alarm. Amata sounds like she's calling him from a distant dream, rather than the foot of his bed.

Pushing himself onto his elbows, Tate tries to focus on Amata’s frantic expression. A bead of sweat runs down the side of her face. Either that or she's crying. What is Amata crying about?

“Amata? What's wrong?” Tate starts getting out of bed, pulling a fresh suit from his dresser.

“My father,” she corrects, “your father. He opened the vault door! He's gone. Oh, Tate, my dad is sending security to get you. They killed Jonas already. I don't know what he's thinking. I'm afraid for you, Tate, you need to run!”

Tate doesn't finish pulling his suit on, just tying the arms off at his waist. Gone. His father is gone. Like that, puff of smoke. It's sort of what he's always wanted, but not like this. Now Tate can hear the alarms over the sound of Amata’s rushing breath. The vault has gone on lockdown.

“Radroaches got in when your father left. And, and, Tate you just have to get out.” Amata’s voice speeds up.

On her hip she carries a 10mm. Tate doesn't know where she got it, maybe swiped it from her father. When she touches the handle, her hand shakes. 

The door to Tate’s room starts opening again. He lunges towards the baseball bat in his closet. The weapon will extend his reach, so he doesn't have to get so close to hit someone. But fuck, fuck security all have guns and Tate doesn't. There's the BB gun downstairs but it would barely hurt a fly. 

Tate doesn't hesitate, when he knows the person coming through the door isn't Butch, too tall, he takes a swing at the officer’s head. He crumples to the floor, blocking the door frame and keeping it from closing back. It's Officer Kendall. Shit. Shit. Tate doesn't think he killed him, but he swung pretty hard. The officer bleeds from the side of his head.

“Don't go to the main entrance.” Amata starts stuffing stimpaks into Tate’s pockets, and a wad of thousand dollar bills. She must have been in her father’s safe. “Circle around to my dad’s office. The door under his desk, it leads to a tunnel, it'll take you out to the door.” Coming up on her toes, Amata kisses Tate on the lips, sweet and chaste. It's in case this is goodbye. Amata thinks this might be goodbye. “I'm so sorry, Tate, for all the things I told you, and all the things I didn't. I'm just sorry.”

She steps over Kendall’s body on her way out. Tate doesn't know where she's going with that 10mm, but he's terrified by both her resolve and her apology. Gripping the baseball bat in both hands, Tate knows he's got no choice but to follow Amata’s directions. If the Overseer killed Jonas, he must think that James was involved in some sort of conspiracy. Fuck, was he? Tate doesn't know. Fuck, he and Amata and Butch were involved in a conspiracy! If one that led nowhere. Now security is after him too and he's not gonna go down easy. Tate doesn't really believe he's gonna leave the vault either, but Amata wants him to find that tunnel.

In the halls, radroaches, fat and bulbous, skitter down the hallways, gross. Tate's seen them before, sure, but never in such numbers, never moving in clustered packs. One of them turns its attention to him and he screams like a fucking loser before bashing it with his bat. It crunches and splatters with the blow, green gunk clinging to the front of Tate’s pants. Fuck. He turns to take off down the hall.

“Tate!” Butch, oh thank fuck, it's Butch. His eyes are wide as he grabs onto Tate’s arms. “Tate, they're in with my ma, you gotta help me! The radroaches.”

Tate swallows hard, “okay, okay let's go help her.”

They run to the DeLoria’s suite together, Butch’s hand gripping Tate’s arm the whole time. So tight it's gonna leave distinct fingerprints on Tate’s skin. Butch keeps breathing heavy, whining “ma, ma, I'm sorry.”

Inside the living room, Ellen screams. She's half-delirious, but that's normal. Everyone knows how much she drinks, how she's not all the way there. But Butch doesn't like talking about it, and Tate's not gonna ask. Just, like, fuck. Being with each other gave them a blank slate to ignore everything else. But faced with the stench of hard liquor and Ellen’s wails, Tate can't ignore her right now. This scab of Butch’s.

Tate starts swinging at the roaches, knocking them away and against the wall, where they burst open on impact. Ellen claws at herself, but she's uncoordinated. Tate is afraid he's gonna hit her next. So he drops the bat and grabs the roach on her chest with his hands. He tears it apart before it has the chance to latch onto him. The green goo stains his knuckles, it's thick and terrible and makes Tate want to retch. But that's the last one.

Butch rushes to his mom. She's stopped screaming, but her eyes are glassy. Pressing a hand to her chest, he listens for a heartbeat. “She's alive. Fuck. Tate, she’s alive.”

Tate's sure that they're both gonna cry because over the loudspeakers they hear, “Authorization given to shoot resident Tate Zhang on sight.”

“Tate?” Butch leaves her mother in her chair. She's passed out, but she’ll be okay. “Fuck, Tate.” Butch takes Tate’s face between his hands. “What is going on?”

Not knowing for sure himself, Tate just shakes his head. The guts on his hands are starting to dry. Not caring, he fists his hands in Butch’s shirt, allows himself to sob just once before steeling himself again. He's gotta get to that door. And he can't bring down Butch with him. Not this time. Butch has taken the fall for him too often already.

He wants to tell Butch about this thing that's been making his lungs expand, been making his heart pound and his veins constrict. Tate's more certain of this thing than he's ever been of anything. The world around them is falling apart, but still, Tate is certain.

Butch pulls off his jacket, draping it around Tate’s shoulders. It's heavy and warm and the leather smells like smoke. Fuck. Fuck. Like Butch is holding him, yeah, but like he's saying something too.

Their lips meet halfway, and for the first time, Tate and Butch kiss each other goodbye. Though they don't know it. They don't know the duration of their forced separation, and all the things bound to happen in between, until the rotations of their lives swing their bodies back together. They just don't know.

Tate parts his lips though he can hear security boots in the hallway. They're looking for him, but the door stays closed. Won't for long, though. And as chaotic as the vault is, they'll just as soon shoot Butch as him.

Tate wants to say ‘I love you,’ when they pull away, because he's never been so certain. He loves Butch in a way that is terrifying and vast. But he doesn't say it. He chokes the sweet words down as if they were bitter.

“Don't die, dickhead.” Tate smashes his fist in the side of Butch’s skull. Butch’s limbs go loose and he crumples to the floor in a heap. Tate waits until he's sure Butch has passed out. It's the best way to keep him safe, to make sure Butch doesn't follow, get himself hurt in the process. Security will leave him alone this way.

When the boots go one way, Tate runs the other. Past the clinic, he can hear gunfire. Even the sound of his heart thudding increases the panic percolating inside him. He ducks into the clinic to try and catch his breath, but he can't, because Jonas’ body is there, part of his face blown off. Tate covers his mouth so he makes no noise. Once he's sure he’ll be quiet, he checks Jonas’ pockets, for a knife or gun or anything fucking useful. He just pulls out a note and a pill bottle. In uniform type on the label is his name. “Tate Zhang.” He doesn't read the note. He doesn't take the pills. Tate heads for the atrium.

The Holdens run past him, then the Holdens are dead, riddled with bullets. Tate has to stop himself from screaming. The atrium smells like blood. His hands shake. Why? Why are they killing everyone? Why are they killing anyone who isn't him or his dad? He doesn't even fucking know why they want to kill him and his dad, but that's one step ahead of where Tate can currently think. 

He hides behind a pillar, trying to catch his breath. Tate can't catch anything, though. Right now he's prey, and he knows it. He's gotta cross the atrium to make it to the next hallway. He bites back his fear best he can, dashing for the door that's propped open. Amata said to use the Overseer’s tunnel, not go straight for the door. 

Security Chief Hannon is in the hall. He raises his gun when he sees Tate, firing off two rounds. Throwing himself against the wall, Tate narrowly avoids being shot. He has to be fast enough, shifting his weight and dashing towards Hannon. Leaving the baseball bat behind, Tate knocks Hannon to the ground. He smashes his fists into Hannon’s face, over and over until he stops moving, 

From behind glass, someone screams. Looking up, Tate sees Gloria Mack, her face horrified. She saw everything. Next to her, her husband shouts that he knew, he always fucking knew that this would be a disaster. The Overseer should have never let that outsider with the baby in. Should have never let Tate in. He's a cancer.

Tate can't process what Allen Mack’s accusation means. There isn't the time. Once off the floor, Tate keeps running.

He can hear the Overseer speaking, stern and condescending. Amata is sobbing. Fuck. Tate's scared, but he looks through the glass.

Amata sits on a chair, her father in front of her and Stevie Mack to one side. Her father asks again. “Where is Tate?”

“I don't know!” She shrieks. Covering her face in her hands she repeats, “I don't know, I don't know.”

“I'll get it out of her,” Stevie threatens. He takes a half step towards her and Tate is ready to bust through the glass. He’ll fucking kill Stevie with his bare hands. He’ll rip out his windpipe and make thread from his sinew. He’ll mangle and maim Stevie until nothing is left, until he's obliterated, if he fucking lays a hand on Amata.

But Amata is quick, and a good shot. She has the pistol from her hip. Neither her father nor Stevie were expecting that. Firing off two rounds, Amata shouts louder than Stevie, who dies fast and clean. Barely a whimper. Tate doesn't want to look, but he feels like he should. Tears stream down Amata’s face. 

Her father has switched from rage to comfort, crouching in front of her and pulling her close to her chest. She mutters she's sorry, she's so sorry. Tate doesn't know what to believe. Turning away from the window, Tate vomits onto the floor. Shit, they'll hear him. But Amata’s lament must be loud enough. Wiping his mouth, Tate knows he's got to continue.

Not so much further now to the Overseer’s office. He doesn't know how he's supposed to get the Overseer’s terminal open. The door is already ajar to the office, so Tate runs straight for the terminal. It's password locked. He tries, unsuccessfully, three times to unlock the computer before the automated security locks him out. When the screen flashes “ACCESS DENIED” he punches through the monitor.

“Tate!” Amata rushes in. She has a keypass in her hand. Without another word, she presses the key to the panel under her father’s desk. The floor under their feet starts moving, opening to a pathway below. 

“Where is your dad?” he asks.

“Looking for you.”

“You killed Stevie Mack.” He's not sure why that is so important. Maybe because today, within minutes of each other, he and Amata have both become murderers. Ironically, Butch is the only one without blood on his hands. Fuck.

Once the stairs click into place, Amata and Tate run down to the door. It opens, without needing the keypass again, into a disused tunnel. Tate loses track of the direction. His only grounding is Amata’s labored breathing at his side. Another door dumps them into the vault entrance. How did they even end up here? How did Amata know they'd end up here?

Amata hits the red button, waiting for the door to power back up, then throws the latch. Seconds tick by as the door rolls open, the ‘101’ spinning away.

Security has found them, they're coming through the door. 

“Go! Tate, GO!”

“But Amata.” His feet won't move.

“I'll be fine!” Shots ricochet off the vault door. Security sure has shitty aim.

Tate runs through the sliver of space revealed by the rolling door. Almost as soon as it's open, it starts turning back the other way. Amata is locking herself and security in; she's locking Tate out. He runs down the dirt tunnel, tripping over a pile of bones. He's out of sobs and screams and even tears for the long dead. Not even enough for the fresh kills.

The door on the other end isn't big or metal or opposing, it's a screen door, wood edged. Tate has seen so little wood in his life. He pushes at the door and it swings open.

The world outside is bright. So fucking bright Tate thinks he's dying in the light. That it'll burn out his eyeballs. And fuck, he thought the vault was too bright. 

Once his eyes adjust, Tate looks out over the plain below the hill. Stretching for miles and miles, dirt, ruins, death. Tate was right. The world is dead. It doesn't look like the photographs.

Fuck. Fuck. FUCK! He wants to go home. He wants to run back the tunnel to the vault. So he does, nearly breaking the shoddy screen off its hinges and barreling back down the tunnel to the vault door. He throws himself against the metal, screaming. It doesn't matter what will happen to him on the other side. It has to be better than this. He screams until his voice is hoarse. He claws until his fingers are bloody.

No one hears him. Or if they do, they do nothing. Tate puts his back against the door in the semi-darkness of the tunnel. Through the screen up ahead, he watches the world outside get dark again. Right, the sun sets. Like the night cycle in the vault where the lights get lower.

Tate takes his raw scraped fingers to his pipboy dial.

130758 > 271257: Butch, help.  
130758 > 271257: Come, please, I'm outside.  
130758 > 271257: Butch, I love you.

All the messages come back: undeliverable.


End file.
